VV) THE CRISIS IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA AND
\ THE U.S, ROLE
Y 4. F 76/1: Y 9/4
The Crisis in the Forner Yugoslavia...
x.x^RING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRD CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
SEPTEMBER 29, 1993
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
JAN 2$
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
75-703 CC WASHINGTON : 1993
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
ISBN 0-16-041783-X
THE CRISIS IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA AND
THE U.S, ROLE
Y 4. F 76/1: Y 9/4
The Crisis in the Forner Yugoslavia...
xx^^RING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRD CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
SEPTEMBER 29, 1993
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
> AH ?4 /(
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
73-703 CC WASHINGTON : 1993
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office. Washington. DC 20402
ISBN 0-16-041783-X
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
LEE H. HAMILTON, Indiana, Chairman
SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut
TOM LANTOS, California
ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
HARRY JOHNSTON, Florida
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
Samoa
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California
ROBERT A. BORSKI, Pennsylvania
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CYNTHIA A. MCK1NNEY, Georgia
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
ERIC FINGERHUT, Ohio
PETER DEUTSCH, Florida
ALBERT RUSSELL WYNN, Maryland
DON EDWARDS, California
FRANK MCCLOSKEY, Indiana
THOMAS C. SAWYER, Ohio
(Vacancy)
Michael H. Van Dusen, Chief of Staff
RICHARD J. GARON, Minority Chief of Staff
DEBORAH BURNS, Staff Associate
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York
WILLIAM F.. GOODLING, Pennsylvania
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
TOBY ROTH, Wisconsin
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
DAN BURTON, Indiana
JAN MEYERS, Kansas
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
DAVID A. LEVY, New York
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART, Florida
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
(ID
CONTENTS
Page
WITNESSES
Mr. Misha Glenny, author and former BBC correspondent 2
Mr. Roy Gutman, author and Newsday correspondent 4
Hon. Jeane Kirkpatrick, senior fellow, American Enterprise Institute 6
Professor John Lampe, director, East European Studies, Woodrow Wilson
Center 8
APPENDED
Prepared statements:
Mr. Roy Gutman 37
Hon. Jeane Kirkpatrick 44
Professor John Lampe 52
Material Submitted for the Record
"Serbia's Health Catastrophe", International Herald Tribune article, dated
August 23, 1993 55
"Bosnian Muslims Gains May Have High Cost", Washington Post article,
dated September 12, 1993 56
(III)
THE CRISIS IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA
AND THE U.S. ROLE
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1993
House of Representatives,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room 2172,
Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lee H. Hamilton (chairman)
presiding.
Chairman Hamilton. The Committee on Foreign Affairs will
come to order.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs meets today in open session
to discuss the crisis in the former Yugoslavia and U.S. policy.
We meet, of course, at an important moment in the Bosnian
peace process, at a time when the United States may be confronted
with key decisions regarding its role in implementing a possible
peace agreement. The President of the United States has stated his
willingness for U.S. participation in such a mission if certain condi-
tions are satisfied, and has stated that he will seek support in the
Congress for such participation. Of course, no agreement has been
reached as of this moment.
Our witnesses today are Misha Glenny, author and former BBC
correspondent in Yugoslavia and Central Europe; Roy Gutman, an
author and Newsday correspondent; the Honorable Jeane Kirk-
patrick, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute — I un-
derstand she will be here shortly; and Professor John Lampe, direc-
tor of East European Studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
We welcome each of you here today. Your statements, of course,
will be entered into the record in full, and I would like, before turn-
ing to Mr. Gilman for a statement, to ask each of you to try to take
no more than 5 minutes for your opening remarks. We will have
plenty of time for questions.
And I might say to Members here that I will have to be fairly
strict, I think, in enforcing the 5-minute rule, and ask them, if they
would, to watch carefully the lights. We have a lot of ground to
cover and we want to maximize time for discussion.
The chair recognizes Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend you
for your foresight in scheduling today's hearing, which falls against
the dramatic backdrop of an imminent decision on whether our Na-
tion should commit 25,000 or more troops into the Bosnia area.
I would like to welcome our distinguished panel of experts on the
Balkan Region and what was once Yugoslavia.
(l)
We are pleased that we have participating two distinguished
journalists, Mr. Glenny and Mr. Gutman, both of whom have writ-
ten extensively about politics and life and death in that tragic part
of the world and helped to educate the American public with regard
to this issue.
Professor John Lampe, who directs the Woodrow Wilson Center's
East European Studies Program has provided a great deal of his
expertise on this subject for the benefit of our Members.
I also want to thank Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick for agreeing
to appear before us, and we anticipate she will be arriving shortly.
Our Nation has benefited tremendously from Ms. Kirkpatrick's
leadership in foreign affairs over the years, and we hope to have
Ms. Kirkpatrick's wisdom on what promises to be a critical and dif-
ficult foreign policy decision now looming before us.
We welcome Ms. Kirkpatrick to the panel.
I will not try to do justice to the enormity of the tragedy that is
being played out in the former Yugoslavia. Let me just note that
it is one of the most shocking and disturbing spectacles which we
have had the misfortune to be subject to during this tumultuous
and violent century.
The fact that once again we are observing in Europe the inflic-
tion of unspeakable human misery in the name of ethnic purity
and supremacy raises a most disturbing specter of Europe's recent
dark past. There is a nightmarish quality of deja vu in the events
in Bosnia and elsewhere in what was once Yugoslavia.
Now we have the prospect that American lives may be placed on
the line once again. We must focus our most critical judgment and
obtain the very best advice we can on the forces which shape those
events.
I join my colleagues in looking forward to hearing our witnesses
today to help us further explore this crisis and to fully examine our
options.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hamilton. The chair has been informed that there
have been some mixed signals with regard to the timing here. I
didn't know about that. But we want to operate in such a way that
we have an opportunity to hear you all. I think in the question and
answer part of it we will be able to explore these matters in some
depth.
I would request the members of the panel to try to get their prin-
cipal points across to us in 5 minutes initially, and then we will
proceed with questions.
And I will say to my colleagues that we will try to do the same
with Members, and if you remain, we will come around to you on
a second round.
OK Let's just go across the line here. We will begin, Mr. Glenny,
with you and move from my left to right across the table.
I thank each one of you for coming and let's begin. Mr. Glenny.
STATEMENT OF MISHA GLENNY, AUTHOR, AND FORMER BBC
CORRESPONDENT FOR YUGOSLAVIA AND CENTRAL EUROPE
Mr. Glenny. Thank you.
Few dispute the depth of the agony suffered by all peoples inhab-
iting the former Yugoslavia, above all, the Muslims of Bosnia-
Hercegovina who, in a fundamental respect, are incidental victims
of a Serbo-Croat war. At the outset, however, I wish to stress that
the dead, estimated at between the 220,000 and 270,000, the in-
jured, and the displaced of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina are the
result of a limited war in the Northern Balkans.
This region is pregnant with a far greater potential for violence
than that which observers like myself have been misfortunate
enough to witness firsthand since June 1991. If the fighting in
Bosnia-Hercegovina does not come to an end before the winter, not
only are we assured of the most unspeakable humanitarian catas-
trophe, but the possibility of that limited war turning into an un-
bridled orgy of destruction. That possibility will increase
exponentially this winter.
A continued war in Bosnia-Hercegovina will lead inexorably to
the extermination of the Muslim population of that country. It will
also accentuate existing tensions within Croatia and the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, two weak but well-armed and psychotic
states who themselves are in a state of frozen war.
Leaving aside the moral and political issues raised by the threat
to the Muslims of Bosnia-Hercegovina, the destabilization of Cro-
atia and the rump Yugoslavia will have a disastrous impact on
their neighbors, particularly in the south of the Balkans. Any
spread of the current war, be it a revival of the Serbo-Croat war
in Croatia or the ignition of armed conflict in either the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or in the Serbian region of Kosovo,
will catapult European security into a new and exceptionally dan-
gerous orbit.
As a consequence, it is the moral and political imperative of the
international community and its chief constituent members in
Western Europe — the United States and Russia — to give their
backing to the peace agreement currently under consideration by
the different peoples of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Of course, the division of Bosnia-Hercegovina legitimizes the per-
versity of states defined by nationality. It sets a very distressing
precedent at a time when the peoples of Eastern Europe are redis-
covering their identities and old claims on forgotten or lost terri-
tories are being revived.
But, in the case of the former Yugoslavia, a fractious inter-
national community has, from the start, ignored moral and political
principles. In particular, the recognition of Croatia before the state
authorities in Zagreb had come to a constitutional arrangement
with its rural Serb population meant that the international com-
munity gave tremendous succor to the principle of states based on
ethnic identity.
As such, Western Europe, in the first instance, and the United
States, have contributed to the carve-up of Bosnia-Hercegovina. By
dint of this we are no longer in a position to respond with prin-
ciples. We must respond pragmatically to stop the spread of this
war.
The peace plan, deeply flawed though it is, will enable us to
apply a sticking plaster on Bosnia's gaping wound. This gives us
some precious time to administer preventative medicine to the en-
tire region before that wound reopens.
To those who advocate a punitive response against the perceived
villains of this peace, the Serbs, I am bound to pose the following
questions.
First, if the United States were to announce a lifting of the arms
embargo on the Bosnian government or its intention to bomb Serb
positions in Bosnia, what do you imagine will happen to the Mus-
lims in Srebrenica, Gorazde, Zepa, Bihac, and indeed in Sarajevo's
Old Town? Well, let me tell you. Those Muslims will die in even
larger numbers than has been the case up until now.
The lifting of the embargo is the quickest way to facilitate that
which its advocates say it is trying to prevent: the liquidation of
Bosnia's Muslim populations.
Second, I must ask you what will happen in Mostar? Will you
bomb the Croats as well?
Third, what will you do to the Bosnian army's Sixth Corps in
Central Bosnia which has perpetrated sickening atrocities against
innocent Croat civilians, elderly people and children in recent
months. Will you bomb them too:
Of course, they are committing these atrocities in response to the
atrocities committed against their own people. But is that our an-
swer? To encourage a spiral of vengeance?
As a European, I would finally appeal to the people of the United
States, its Congress, and indeed its President to help Southeastern
Europe in its hour of need. We must have American troops to su-
pervise a peace deal in Bosnia. Only the American military and its
NATO allies have the experience and ability to counter the destruc-
tive forces of history currently ravaging the Balkans. It will give
us a 2-to 3-year period in which we can diffuse the detonators of
war which threaten not just what is left of Bosnia-Hercegovina, but
also the fragile republics of Croatia, Yugoslavia, and the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Thank you.
Chairman Hamilton. Thank you, Mr. Glenny.
Chairman Hamilton. Mr. Gutman.
STATEMENT OF ROY GUTMAN, AUTHOR AND NEWSDAY
CORRESPONDENT, BASED IN BONN, GERMANY
Mr. Gutman. Mr. Chairman, and Members of the committee,
first, it is an honor for me and for my newspaper to be invited to
appear before you.
My published reports, in a sense, constitute my testimony. At the
same time, as one of the relatively few Americans to have spent
time on the ground and to have reported some of the terrible
events that have occurred, I feel obliged to make such knowledge
or analysis as I have available to any serious inquiry. As you weigh
the steps that come before you, it may be helpful to review what
has occurred.
From my own reporting, I am convinced that there has been a
pattern of atrocities. It has been primarily, but not exclusively, car-
ried out by the Bosnian Serb armed forces.
The pattern includes the following: the destruction and siege of
villages and cities; massacres; extrajudicial executions of unarmed
civilians; mass deportations and subhuman conditions such as cat-
tle cars; the rounding up of enormous numbers of men and a small-
er number of women in camps where they were beaten or starved
to death; the systematic rape of women; the singling out of unmar-
ried women of childbearing age to rape; the setting up of camps
where women were held and raped; the harassment; the robbery
and murder of refugees in flight; the destruction of every last
mosque; and now it appears every last Roman Catholic church in
the areas under Serb control.
There are only estimates, but it seems quite plausible that
200,000 people have died, most of them civilians unable to defend
themselves. These add up to the systematic attempt to exterminate
a nation. That is my personal conclusion.
A sizable body of data has been collected by human rights orga-
nizations such as Helsinki Watch, and the U.S. Government has
carried out a significant effort to gather data. It has made only a
portion of the material available to the public. But such material
as our Government and other governments have gathered leads to
an overwhelming and clear conclusion.
The U.N. Security Council has acknowledged the gravity of the
crimes by setting up the first war crimes tribunal since Nurem-
berg. Its primary assignment, if I read the charter of it correctly,
is to investigate charges of genocide. This assumes, of course, that
the Security Council can overcome its current impasse over the ap-
pointment of a prosecutor.
Within the State Department, the experts have also analyzed the
pattern of atrocities and concluded that it is genocide. But at the
political level, the executive branch is still wrestling with what to
call it. It recently came up with an awkward, and I think inad-
equate, description: acts of genocide.
Up to now, no Western government has formally determined that
this is genocide under the Genocide Convention. And I start with
this point because I believe that defining and characterizing the
event itself is the fundamental starting point for any analysis, and
analysis has to be the basis on which we all proceed. Legally, under
the International Convention on Genocide the act of genocide is an
attempt to eliminate all or part of a nation, a people or religious
group, and to prevent that group from reproducing.
By definition, by nature genocide is a continuing event, and this
genocide is a continuing event. It is occurring today at a less dra-
matic level than previously. In fact, some of the previous excesses,
some of the incredible atrocities that have been reported, were
curbed in the past year, partly because of the international atten-
tion focused on them. But genocide continues, possibly because no
one focuses on it today.
And I have included in my statement a number of examples,
graphic examples, of terrible atrocities that have occurred in the
area of Northern Bosnia in just the last month.
These are not random events that are described in these six or
seven examples here. They are not carried out by uncontrolled
forces. They are the result of decisions carried out by the agents,
by the authorities who run Northern Bosnia — namely, the Serb au-
thorities, or the region called "Herceg Bosna," the Bosnian-Croat
authorities. And it is regrettable that international attention has
ceased to focus on these events.
I have one suggestion which I am making in my statement and
I want just to bring to your attention at the very beginning. The
U.S. Government has collected a sizable amount of data on the
events of the last year, both in the Serb-controlled areas and more
recently in the Croat-controlled areas. They have carried out, as far
as I can make out, a very careful analysis of the data. They have
figured out, really, what has happened.
This information is available in the U.S. Government, but it is
not yet available to the American people. It is still classified. And
the one suggestion I would like to make, first and foremost, is that
this should be made available to you, to us, and to the people, so
that we can know what really has come before, before proceeding
to the next step. Thank you very much.
Chairman Hamilton. Thank you very much for your statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gutman appears in the appen-
dix.]
Ambassador Kirkpatrick.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JEANE J. KIRKPATRICK,
SENIOR FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
Ms. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the
committee. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to share
some thoughts with you on recent developments in Bosnia, which
continue to be tragic, and also on the proposal, which is not yet for-
mally on the table, that thousands of U.S. troops take part in a
massive peacekeeping effort in Bosnia.
Several issues of special concern to me are present in the pro-
posed plan for peacekeeping in Bosnia. I summarize.
One, I think we must face the question: Will this peacekeeping
do justice to basic issues concerning the use of force and respect for
territorial integrity, or will they simply involve American service-
men in enforcing an unjust peace?
Two, is it consistent with the responsibilities of the U.S. Govern-
ment to the U.S. Armed Forces? Will it put American forces in
harm's way under foreign command, U.N. command, under rules of
engagement which do not permit their effective defense?
Three, will this policy have a reasonable, containable cost borne
equitably among NATO members and other participants? Will it
count toward the U.S. payment of U.N. peacekeeping costs? Or will
the United States accept the Secretary General's insistence that if
NATO commands, NATO, and not the U.N., pays?
Four, how and where will it end?
Five, will the peacekeeping approach actually contribute to peace
in Central Europe in the long run, or will it, by accepting terri-
torial conquest, invite further aggression?
I would like to comment very briefly on each of these questions.
I would begin by noting that traditional peacekeeping operations
have some special characteristics. You all know them. They are set
up with the consent of the parties. They are neutral between the
parties to a conflict. They use minimum force in the performance
of their task. They are carried out under U.N. supervision, and
they tend to last forever.
Most of these characteristics are not present in Bosnia and will
not be. Peacekeeping in Bosnia could not reasonably be said to rest
on the consent of the parties. As we all know, if a cease-fire is ar-
rived at, it will be based on the most extreme possible duress and
on conquest, and the United States will be put in the position of
enforcing an unjust agreement.
A sovereign nation, Bosnia, will be forced to sign an agreement
that violates its most basic interests, its territory, its sovereignty
in the most clear-cut way, I believe, of any nation since Czecho-
slovakia, under European pressure, was coerced into signing the
Munich Agreement. That is not a spurious analogy. It is, I think,
a very apt one.
As I understand it, the Clinton administration is proposing to
take part in a massive peacekeeping operation consisting of some
50,000 NATO troops, with the United States, perhaps, providing
half of these troops.
I further understand that U.S. troops are likely to be placed in
the southeastern part of Bosnia-Hercegovina, primarily in cities
around Sarajevo, Mostar and Gorazde, and that there are problems
about deployment, of course, and problems about cost.
There are problems about the duration of such an operation. No
one, I believe, is prepared even to guess, much less to offer a seri-
ous estimate, of when such an effort might end or what the overall
cost of such an effort might be, or what will be the rules of engage-
ment for U.S. troops in Bosnia.
We all know that normally the U.N. rules of engagement — I
mean the rules of engagement for U.N. operations — are established
by the U.N. Secretariat and they include the minimum possible use
of force. That is not appropriate and is extremely dangerous in a
situation in which violence is the basic fact of life, as in Bosnia.
I believe there is another path and that it is better late than
never. The other path involves lifting the arms embargo. It involves
providing arms to Bosnian Muslims, helping them with American
airpower. The first step toward that other path is, I think, the pas-
sage of the Hyde amendment.
Mr. Chairman, just one word. I would like to quote the National
Security Adviser to the President, Anthony Lake, who said last
week, "While we have clear reasons to engage and persist, concern-
ing Bosnia, they do not justify the extreme cost of taking unilateral
responsibility or imposing a solution. With all due respect, I would
like to suggest that a superpower such as the United States, the
only existing superpower, has an impact when it fails to act, as
well as when it acts. We are already involved in, or 'imposing a so-
lution'" to use Anthony Lake's words, and it is an unjust solution
and the extreme costs of this unjust solution that we are engaged
in imposing — moral, political and eventually military costs — lie in
not helping the Bosnian Muslims.
I believe, if necessary, the United States should act unilaterally,
now at this late date, to assist the Bosnian Muslims in this dire
situation. Thank you.
Chairman Hamilton. Thank you very much, Ambassador Kirk-
patrick.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kirkpatrick appears in the ap-
pendix.]
We will conclude the formal testimony with professor Lampe.
8
STATEMENT OF JOHN LAMPE, DIRECTOR OF EAST EUROPEAN
STUDIES, THE WOODROW WH.SON CENTER
Mr. Lampe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A last window of opportunity may yet open in the war over
Bosnia-Hercegovina. If this war, on tne other hand, continues now
or resumes next spring it will surely cost many more thousands of
lives, and likely spread beyond the Bosnian border, most likely to
Kosovo, Macedonia and beyond.
Such a wider conflict would make the Bosnian war's threat to
European security and to the democratic transition in Southeastern
Europe, both vital U.S. interests, too clear but too late. The pres-
ently proposed partition of Bosnia-Hercegovina is hardly attractive
in itself by Western standards of human rights. It doesn't even
measure up to the original Vance-Owen plan with its minority
rights for political representation and refugees returning. But
never mind that spilt milk.
I would add that the now proposed presence of U.S. and Western
troops does, in my mind, call the Munich analogy with Czecho-
slovakia in 1938 into question. There were no British or French
troops sent to hold the remainder of Czechoslovakia, minus
Sudetenland, against the Nazis at that time.
The Clinton administration has rightly encouraged the Bosnian
government of Alija Izetbegovic to drive the hardest, least bad bar-
gain, that it can with the Bosnian, Serb and Croat regimes. Let
them continue to do so.
All sides of the forces in the field, however, have shown no sign
of being able to observe a cease-fire, let alone a settlement, by
themselves. Bosnian government representatives in particular have
long insisted that only the presence of a sizable contingent of West-
ern troops on the ground, with the United States in the lead, can
enforce any settlement, and then only under aggressive rules of en-
gagement.
So exit any reconstituted UNPROFOR arrangement and its pas-
sive rules of engagement and enter an American-led NATO force
that offers, in my judgment, the only hope for establishing peace
long enough for pressure for more reasonable politics and the re-
turn of economic rationality to assert itself.
Now, the Clinton administration's detailed plan for just such a
presence has come forward, but with a set of qualifications that
makes observers like myself wonder whether it is intended only to
promise an enforced settlement, another promise, and then provide
no likelihood that troops will actually be dispatched or paid for.
Among the qualifications for "getting in" that I find most trou-
bling is the indeterminate period for observing that all sides are
not only observing the cease-fire but also pulling back both troops
and heavy weapons. Their leaders cannot, I fear, trust or compel
their local commanders to do this on their own.
But what about the risk of U.S. troops facing an escalating series
of Somalia-like skirmishes and then having no predictable way of
getting out? All the various armies and militias in Bosnia-
Hercegovina are neither well-trained nor tightly disciplined. They
are still sufficiently concentrated and controlled to be far more vul-
nerable to the striking power of U.S. troops and technology includ-
ing airpower than the scattered urban guerrillas of Somali war-
lords, and the troops as well as the commanders of the Bosnian
forces, the Serbs in particular, they know it, as a number of
sources have assured me.
Now "getting out" is another matter. Some open-ended commit-
ment to turn Bosnia-Hercegoyina into a NATO mandate or trust
territory? That asks too much, of course. The administration has
spoken of staying for a year. Let me propose one year with man-
dated consideration of renewal for another year, and that potential
renewal seems to me a significantly better guarantee that a lasting
wider accommodation from Croatia to Macedonia can be reached
than does Senator Nunn's recent proposal for "exit and lift," prom-
ising to lift the arms embargo on the Bosnian Muslims as a fare-
well gesture.
If the impending settlement fails, unfortunately, it gives those
Muslim commanders not under direct control by the Bosnian gov-
ernment— and there are such people, let me assure you — an incen-
tive to violate the settlement in order to gain access to more arms.
We should not underestimate, by the way, the weaponry and sup-
plies they currently receive. Such a stipulation would tempt Serb
and Croat commanders to strike first before Muslim forces could
receive or deploy new arms.
It would also discourage them from accepting the NATO force as
a guarantor of equal accountability for all sides in observing the
terms of settlement and paying a fair, that is a strict and severe
price, for any violation.
I would add that the proposed concentration of U.S. forces in Sa-
rajevo, Mostar and Gorazde does afford the largely urban Muslim
population who are, or as Misha Glenny says, the principal victims
of this war, an overdue guarantee of their safety.
Now finally, how can we "encourage" the Serbian government of
Slobodan Milosevic to comply? Only — be patient with this point —
only by weakening the public support that clumsy and needlessly
comprehensive sanctions have generated for Milosevic, and still
worse Vojislav Seselj.
August public opinion polls from Serbia shows such support for
these two now rising in Belgrade and other cities whose living
standards have been devastated by the sanctions. Their popu-
lations are reversing their previous opposition to old Communists
and new nationalists. Let us lift requirements for the always de-
layed or denied permissions for food and medicine, and for all raw
materials and equipment connected thereto, requirements that
have made a mockery of the supposed exemption of food and medi-
cine. I bring along the Henry Kamm article from the Herald Trib-
une, August 23, 1993, detailing the consequences of these require-
ments. Promising to lift all sanctions could then be used to ensure
Serbian compliance with the Bosnian settlement and also good
faith negotiations with Croatia and, lest we forget, with the Alba-
nian population of Kosovo, patiently keeping their powder dry for
now.
If such dealings were beyond the capacity of the Milosevic re-
gime, so much the better. Let us then deal with an alternative re-
gime that will be needed in any case to restore Serbia's honorable
place as a European state and nation.
Thank you.
10
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lampe appears in the appendix.]
Chairman Hamilton. Thank you very much, Professor Lampe.
One of the things we asked the staff to do was to give us a panel
that would give us a variety of opinion, and I think we achieved
that, probably rather successfully. I thank you for your statements
and also for keeping your remarks brief. I think that will facilitate
our discussion.
I want to say again to members that I will try to enforce quite
strictly the 5-minute rule on questions.
PEACE PLAN
Let me be begin with what appears to be imminent, and that is
the failure of peace talks. I don't know exactly what the latest word
is out of Sarajevo, but it appears as if they are going to reject, or
at least put conditions on acceptance, which would amount to rejec-
tion of the negotiated proposal. What are the consequences of that?
What flows from that if there is a rejection?
Mr. Lampe. I will start by suggesting that I think there will be
further negotiations and that the
Chairman Hamilton. It is not a final rejection?
Mr. Lampe. It is not a final rejection in that, if the most recent
account I have seen is correct, suggesting that the Bosnian govern-
ment demands are centered around six or seven urban centers.
Those are very legitimate demands. They do not involve a huge
shift in the percentage of territory, so it is conceivable there could
be one more "once" as the winter approaches.
Mr. Glenny. I was in Sarajevo 10 days ago, and according to my
sources inside the Bosnian government, what they are saying the
delay is about is due to the fact that President Izetbegovic is hav-
ing to bring on board radicals in the Muslim leadership, that is
radicals from Zenica and in the army, to try and persuade them to
accept this peace deal. These radicals are threatening President
Izetbegovic with reprisals if he does agree to it, and this sort of
process of near acceptance and then rejection, this is what sources
in the Bosnian government are saying is in order to bring on board
those hardliners to agree to this deal, and this is why we are see-
ing such a troublesome process.
Chairman Hamilton. You think they will agree to it?
Mr. Glenny. My feeling is that they will agree to this, yes. If
they don't agree to it, then we are going to have a dreadful winter
in Bosnia-Hercegovina and we are also going to see an increased
likelihood of the outbreak of war in Croatia again.
Chairman Hamilton. Ambassador Kirkpatrick.
Ms. Kirkpatrick. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I believe that what will
happen, and I think it will happen, that the so-called peace nego-
tiations will fail, and what it will mean is the removal, for the
present at least, of the fig leaf of pretense that peacekeeping could
be based on consent of the parties.
I think this absence of consent, which is crucial to peacekeeping,
is what should inform us clearly that this is not an appropriate sit-
uation for peacekeeping. It is inappropriate. It is a desperate hu-
manitarian crisis which cannot be dealt with through conventional
peacekeeping means.
11
I believe also, as I understand it, the Croatians are about to re-
ject the UNPROFOR troops for next year and will in the process,
of course, withdraw consent for U.N. operations in Croatia as well
as in Bosnia.
Mr. Lampe. That is right. Yes.
Chairman Hamilton. OK. And you would look upon a rejection,
Ambassador Kirkpatrick, as a desirable development?
Ms. Kirkpatrick. No, I don't look on it as desirable. Nothing
that has happened in Bosnia and Croatia is desirable.
Chairman Hamilton. Nothing is desirable?
Ms. Kirkpatrick. Just nothing, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hamilton. Let me ask another question, then I will
turn to Mr. Gilman.
AMERICAN NATIONAL INTERESTS
How would you express the American national interests that are
at stake in the conflict in Yugoslavia? Is it a vital interest of the
United States? However you want to approach it. What is the
American national interest in this conflict?
Mr. Glenny. I will talk very briefly, from the European point of
view, on what I believe the interests of the United States are in
Europe. The United States, of course, has already deployed 300
troops inside the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and I be-
lieve that is an expression of American interest in the south of the
Balkans.
America is clearly concerned with the region around Turkey be-
cause of Turkey's central position both bordering on Iran, the
southern rim of the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, Iraq,
and so on, and also the southern Balkans. So there does appear to
be, as far as I can observe, an active interest in the region by the
United States.
The other important interest of the United States, as far as I un-
derstand it, in this region is that a destabilization of Southern Eu-
rope, possibly Central Europe as well, is going to have severe con-
sequences for the existing world order such as it functions.
Any major destabilization of Europe, which is what the war in
Bosnia-Hercegovina threatens, also threatens the vital economic
and political interests of the United States, and that is why, al-
though it is extremely unfortunate for the United States, it has to
maintain and retain its security role inside Europe.
Mr. Lampe. Let me second Misha Glenny's mention of the eco-
nomic aspect. All of the surrounding countries, including Hungary,
are losing hundreds of millions of dollars. The loss has been esti-
mated, in fact, for Bulgaria at $2 billion so far. Macedonia's sur-
vival as a separate entity is threatened with tremendous losses
from the continuing sanctions.
And, I venture to say, that the German and Austrian economic
performance within the last year is slowed in part by the blockage
of normal trade to the South, and this is to say nothing of the refu-
gee crisis that also snowballs from this.
Ms. Kirkpatrick. Mr. Chairman, I believe that the whole history
of the world, and certainly of this century, demonstrates that vio-
lence is contagious, terribly contagious, and that is the whole rea-
son that we have institutions to enforce laws. And that violence —
12
particularly the extreme violence that characterizes this conflict
which results in successful aggression, rewards for aggression — will
almost certainly be repeated, and that is dangerous for us.
Mr. Lampe. Hear! Hear!
Chairman Hamilton. Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Again, I welcome our panelists, thank them for their observa-
tions. I would like to address Ms. Kirkpatrick.
ARMING OF BOSNIAN GOVERNMENT
Ms. Kirkpatrick, you signed an open letter to President Clinton
advocating that our Nation and other Western democracies join the
government of Bosnia under Article 51 of the U.N. charter in col-
lective self-defense, and that would involve the use of Western air-
power against Serbian military targets, in essence, and arming the
Bosnian government.
Now that we have heard about this proposed agreement for
Bosnia, do you still believe that your suggestion to trie President
is preferable to the prospect of 25,000 American troops on the
ground in Bosnia?
Ms. Kirkpatrick. Congressman Gilman, I very definitely believe
that it is preferable, and I believe it will be more effective in bring-
ing peace on some kind of terms compatible with survival to
Bosnia.
I just don't think that the proposal for 50,000 peacekeeping
troops will work. I think it will be costly and expensive, uncontrol-
lable and ineffective, finally.
I think the Serbians have indicated throughout this conflict that
they understand very well the language of violence themselves,
which is their native language, ana that the Bosnians who have
been penalized by an arms embargo that unfairly worked against
them from the beginning have demonstrated also that they can
make use of arms to level the playing field, as people put it.
I think that Article 51 of the U.N. charter makes clear that the
right of self-defense and collective self-defense is available to all
countries who are subject to aggression.
Clearly the Security Council has not dealt with this problem.
Base this on international law and I think strategy would be
sound.
HISTORY OF YUGOSLAV PROBLEM
Mr. Gilman. An interesting footnote to history, the other day I
met with some Austrian diplomats who reminded me that during
the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1878, I believe it was, they too
were confronted with the Yugoslavian, Bosnia-Hercegovina prob-
lem, sent in some 50,000 troops initially and they found that wasn't
sufficient. Sent another 50,000 in thereafter, found that wasn't suf-
ficient. Same problems existed then as exist now.
So I think we better take a good look at our history books as we
confront this problem.
Mr. Lampe. Congressman, could I
Mr. Gilman. Yes.
Mr. Lampe. As a historian, could I add a footnote here from
1878?
13
Mr. Gilman. Yes, Mr. Lampe.
Mr. Lampe. That was an occasion for the Austro-Hungarian em-
pire to occupy all of Bosnia-Hercegovina, taking it over from an
Ottoman empire that was essentially obliged to cede it. So I don't
think that is a comparable historical exchange.
It was, however, a time when the various ethnic groups in
Bosnia-Hercegovina tended to be, although led by the Muslims, to-
gether in opposing the foreign presence.
Mr. Gilman. They had related to me that it was somewhat simi-
lar circumstances. I thank you for further elaborating on that.
SAFE HAVENS
Mr. Glenny, you have written that, in your view, the best among
a series of undesirable options is to implement the safe havens
plan on behalf Bosnia's Muslim community. I assume you feel that
the present peace plan with NATO providing the security carries
forward the safe havens concept.
You base your prescription on the belief that nothing other than
the interposition of superior forces will prevent the ethnic hos-
tilities among the Serbs, the Croats and Muslim communities from
continuing.
How long do you expect that the NATO deployment would have
to last to guarantee that peace lasts in Bosnia? This is something
that is troubling all of us. How long would we have to be there?
Mr. Glenny. I would say that it is very difficult to put any pre-
cise timing on — any length of stay on the NATO troops. But in the
first instance, I would say there should be a commitment of at least
3 years of these troops going in there.
What has happened since before June 1991 when the war broke
out in the former Yugoslavia is that the international community
has been extremely divided in its approach to the Yugoslav crisis.
And we must now unite in our approach. We can only unite in our
approach to a solution, not merely of the question of Bosnia-
Hercegovina, but of Croatia, FYRM — that is the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia — and Kosovo, and so on and so forth. And
we need at least 3 years, I would say, in order to do this.
Mr. Gilman. I thank you. I thank the panelists.
This is a troublesome issue for all of us as we confront whether
to commit 25,000 troops to that area.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hamilton. Mr. Torricelli.
Mr. Torricelli. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
FUTURE PROBLEMS IN EUROPE
Ambassador Kirkpatrick, reflecting upon this crisis that has un-
folded in these months, what does it reveal for us about European
institutions and how the United States should approach future
problems in Europe, the extent to which we should be — can afford
to be — deferential, the extent to which Europe may have learned
from the failure of institutions in this instance, what it tells us
about how we approach future American policy on the continent?
Ms. Kirkpatrick. Congressman Torricelli, I believe that the pas-
sivity of the world in the face of genocide — I think it is genocide —
in Bosnia demonstrates the first major failure of the West since the
73-703 0-93-2
14
cold war — since World War II really. It certainly represents the
first major failure of the EC. In the first instance, the EC claimed
jurisdiction over the exploding violence in what was Yugoslavia and
the EC quite simply has talked at great length and ended with a
solution that resembles that of the Avignon conference before
World War II.
I think that the EC has proved inept and incapable of taking se-
riously the need for effective collective security on its own borders
in the heart of Europe, and I am sure that must be a great dis-
appointment to most opponents of European unity and it should be
a great disappointment to the governments of Europe.
I find the tendency to repeat appeasement and to respond with
passivity to so much violence on their borders almost incredible on
the part of our closest friends and allies, in Europe, quite frankly.
Mr. Torricelli. There clearly was a judgment in this govern-
ment to be deferential to Europe generally and the Germans spe-
cifically when indeed the Yugoslav Federation began to break. If,
in the future from the Bosphorus to the Basques, there is another
European crisis that evolves into violence and threatens a state, I
trust that until precedent is otherwise established it should be our
judgment that the EC, the Western European union and such other
institutions as exist in Western Europe simply cannot be believed
to be sufficient to deal with these crises while the United States
waits and hopes for the best.
Would that be your assessment?
Ms. Kerkpatrick. That would be my assessment, yes.
Mr. Torricelli. Would anyone else like to comment on this?
Mr. Lampe. Well, I would like to add therefore that does this not
bring the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance back into the center of
American attention? This is one institution that did work well in
its time. Its purpose now is questioned more generally.
And so it seems to me that the European failure combined with
the existence of this American-led longstanding alliance does bring
the issue of NATO responsibility before us.
Mr. Torricelli. For some of us it never left the center of atten-
tion.
Mr. Lampe. Yes.
Mr. Torricelli. That is part of the point I was trying to make.
ACCESS TO ADRIATIC
The Bosnian insistence on an access to the Adriatic being critical
for the economic vitality of the state and, indeed, for its security.
Would each of you comment upon whether, given the cost of achiev-
ing this outlet, the delay in a peace settlement, the chance of re-
newed conflict, whether indeed this is worth the price and their se-
curity and economic assessment has merit?
Mr. Gutman. Congressman, it has basically been accepted by
both sides, as I understand it. There is a signed agreement about
10 days or 2 weeks old; I think it functions largely in a psycho-
logical aspect. Clearly a landlocked Bosnia right now is suffering
greatly. It cannot survive. They must have access to the sea.
And my understanding is, as I say, that basically it has been
agreed to in a form that is acceptable to the Bosnians.
15
Mr. TORRICELLI. I thought that the corridor to it was judged not
to be sufficient, not have security. That it was too narrow or did
not provide enough of an access. Is that not accurate?
Mr. Gutman. Corridors are a very uncertain and historically
weak way of solving any kind of problem, and the idea of creating
this whole string of corridors which have to be patrolled and sup-
ported by outside forces is a very uncertain thing. It is really risky,
and I don't know how many troops it would take to actually make
sure that these corridors would remain open.
It is clearly no substitute for what now exists.
Mr. Glenny. Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic has ex-
pressed satisfaction with the agreement reached in Zagreb with
Mate Granic, who is the Croat Foreign Minister, as regards the ac-
cess to the sea.
SITUATION INSIDE EUROPE
I would like very briefly to come back to your last question about
the situation inside Europe. We are constrained by certain histori-
cal conditions. For example, we cannot deploy German troops any-
where inside of Eastern Europe at all. It simply cannot happen.
We are also constrained by historical conflicts between the var-
ious nations of Europe. As such, we are simply not in a constitu-
tional position to move toward a swift type of unity which would
guarantee the security of Europe without the United States there.
Chairman Hamilton. I might say to members that according to
rules of the committee, I will call on those members who were here
at the start of the meeting, and the order from this point will be
Mr. Hyde, Mr. Menendez, Mr. McCloskey, and then we will go to
members who came in after the meeting started.
Mr. Hyde.
Mr. Hyde. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just preface my remarks by thanking you for holding
these hearings. I think these are very important. I think the Amer-
ican people had better start focusing on this situation, and Con-
gress had better start getting interested in it as well.
Before I ask a question I just cannot help but comment on the
intractability of what confronts us. It seems to me that this is Ab-
yssinia 1935 again. The world stands around and fulminates but
is immensely passive in the face of an international outrage.
And it would appear, depressingly so, that the term "collective
security" is still an illusion and the world has learned nothing from
the great wars that we have been confronted with. Santayana is
going to be vindicated again.
Ethnic disputes elsewhere are watching and they are going to see
there is no penalty for aggression, and this can proliferate.
Article 51 must be a dead letter because nobody pays any atten-
tion to it. A sovereign state cries out for help and we avert our
eyes, and the world averts our eyes and reinforces embargoes that
are lopsided, and it is just very depressing.
This committee did pass an amendment which gave the Presi-
dent the authority to, and hopefully the incentive to, lift the embar-
go, insofar as this country is concerned, pursuant to Article 51 to
permit the Bosnians to defend themselves. But that language is
16
over in the other body and I am grateful that Ms. Kirkpatrick
averted to it.
Now, given our predisposition to support the Bosnian govern-
ment, can we or should we play an impartial role in enforcing a
peace agreement as though both sides or equally innocent or
guilty?
This is a peace agreement that is a disaster, that is a rape of an
entire country, a sovereign country, and I am wondering if our role
should be to try to enforce that which is not based on the consent
certainly of the victims, the Bosnians, the Muslims, or should we
protect the Muslim enclaves and perhaps even lift the arms embar-
go, and arm them so they might defend themselves.
U.S. ROLE
Mr. Glenny has given a powerful argument against that. I would
be interested to know what the rest of the panel — not that I am
disinterested in your views, but I know them. They are very vigor-
ously asserted and a little scary, I might add. But could I hear
from Mr. Gutman and Professor Lampe, and certainly Ms. Kirk-
patrick, on whether we should be over there enforcing a dishonest,
disreputable proceeds of aggression called a peace agreement?
Mr. Gutman. Congressman, with due respect, I would prefer not
to offer policy prescriptions or even advice, because I am still, as
a reporter, in a sense covering your committee.
But I would say, of course, that there are great difficulties in en-
forcing the agreement. And, in my statement, I have alluded to the
difficulty I, as a reporter, have in even understanding what the
agreement is about.
My concern is what has happened already to the people because
I think that that is the event, the fact that will probably motivate
them in the future.
Mr. Hyde. It is more of a cease-fire than a peace agreement, isn't
it?
WAR CRIMES
Mr. Gutman. Well, sir, as I say, my concern is that so much has
happened already that you must take into account the motives of
the people who have suffered, and what are their motives are for
supporting an agreement. This is really a critical question. In the
case of the Serbs, and at this point the Croats and, of course, ev-
erybody is involved in the atrocities to some degree, but especially
the Serbs and Croats, you have on the one side many people who
can be accused of war crimes, and then you have many victims of
war crimes. Those who have committed the crimes have some stake
in not being caught, and, in fact, perhaps even carrying out more,
if necessary, whereas those who are victims have a stake in re-
venge. You have to deal with the basic question of justice, I think
if you are going to figure out how to put Bosnia together, how to
even stabilize the region.
LIFTING ARMS EMBARGO
Mr. Lampe. Congressman, let me speak against lifting the arms
embargo, not from any great enthusiasm for the idea of equal re-
17
sponsibility. I don't advance that proposition. But, on the other
hand, this kind of fighting, this kind of killing, has generated the
feeling on all sides that we are wronged unjustly. We must take
revenge. Also, all sides have individuals who want to avoid pros-
ecution. The continuation of fighting lets those elements come for-
ward. We see them advancing in some of the Bosnian Muslim lead-
ership now.
Mr. Hyde. But, Professor, you would lift the sanctions on Croatia
and Serbia and keep the embargo imposed on the Bosnians?
Mr. Lampe. Only food and medicine, to take away the easy sup-
port that it gives to the Milosevic regime. We don't have sanctions
on Croatia at this time.
At the same time, if the fighting were stopped and these military
forces mixed in with the gangster and criminal elements that are
coming forward on all sides were stopped — and I think they are
frightened enough of NATO forces in general and American forces
in particular — that is the only chance we have got to have some
kind of reasonable exchange and a settlement come forward.
I would agree with you that this is somewhere between a cease-
fire and a settlement. I think we will never get a settlement with-
out the intimidation of the NATO forces on the ground.
U.N. CHARTER ON BORDERS
Ms. Kirkpatrick. Congressman Hyde, I would like to say that I
believe that it is unacceptable to the consciences of many Ameri-
cans to use American forces and resources to enforce the borders
of the new Bosnia. We know how those borders came to be. We
know that there has been here a violation of the most basic rule
of the U.N. charter.
The U.N. charter does not recommend neutrality in the face of
aggression. The U.N. charter does not speak about neutrality or
even about peacekeeping. The U.N. charter asserts that aggression
is forbidden, that the threat or use of force against the territorial
integrity or political independence of any state is in fact a violation
of the charter — the most fundamental violation of the charter. And
it recommends that acts be taken to restore the damage wrought
by the use of force in violating the borders of a sovereign state.
Bosnia is a sovereign state. Its borders have been violated by
acts of aggression and the use of force. To treat, to respond to, that
aggression with neutrality is to make a mockery of the U.N. char-
ter, and of international law, in fact, and of our commitment to law
and to peace.
Thank you.
Chairman Hamilton. Yes, Mr. Glenny?
Mr. Glenny. May I make a brief remark seeing as Congressman
Hyde addressed me on this?
I wanted to refute one very important myth about the cause of
this war, and that is that the processes associated with the collapse
of the former Yugoslavia are identical to that of German imperial
expansion in the 1930's through the Nazi war machine, and that
what has happened in Sarajevo is a close analogy with what hap-
pened in Munich, because Yugoslavia was an existing state. In that
state the Serbs of Yugoslavia had certain guarantees which they
18
had demanded because of the genocide perpetrated against them
during the second world war.
Now this state, Yugoslavia, was derecognized without consulting
the Serbs in Croatia and in Bosnia-Hercegovina who are an ex-
tremely insecure part of the Serbian nation. They were also ex-
tremely well armed.
And few people took account of what we were doing by encourag-
ing the independence of the constituent Republics of the former
Yugoslavia.
When I argue that we should not lift the arms embargo, I do it
because close personal friends of mine have been killed in Sarajevo,
Muslims. I do not want to see more close personal friends of mine
killed in Skopje or killed in Pristina, Albanians and Macedonians.
That is why I argue not to lift the arms embargo, and that argu-
ment is a reflection of many, many independent Muslim intellec-
tuals inside Sarajevo, Zagreb, and elsewhere in the former Yugo-
slavia. It is not essentially a Serb or Croat argument.
Chairman Hamilton. Mr. Berman.
Mr. Berman. Well, just following up on Mr. Hyde's question— al-
though maybe before I ask my question, I saw Ambassador Kirk-
patrick shaking her head negatively toward Mr. GlennVs com-
ments. Did you want to reject nis analysis of the sense of the ori-
gins of this problem?
Ms. Kirkpatrick. Yes, I did. Thank you. I wanted to suggest
that there was an opportunity, in fact, for Serbs in Bosnia and Cro-
atia to participate in the national referendum which was held
under conditions of democratic competition and which they decided
to boycott. That was their decision, but they had the opportunity
to participate.
And I would also like to suggest that both of those states were
recognized by the EC, by the United Nations, and that if we are
to argue that states, some minority of which deny the legitimacy
of the process of self-determination and the declaration of inde-
pendence, should become the objects of aggression, therefore that
applies to the whole of the former Soviet Union among other
places. The precedent is a dangerous one.
LIFTING OF ARMS EMBARGO
Mr. Berman. My question: we, in Congress, can't make the deci-
sion to lift the embargo. There is a separate question of whether
the President is legally able to do it given that there is a Security-
Council-imposed embargo. And Mr. Hyde has an argument with
that. I voted with him to urge the President to do whatever he can
legally to lift it.
authorization of peacekeeping forces
But let's assume we are unsuccessful in affecting the administra-
tion's decision. What are the moral implications now of authorizing
peacekeeping forces which hold out the promise of limiting further
aggression against Bosnia and leaving it with far less than it
should have territorially, but will alleviate the killing and the
fighting, versus not authorizing those forces which would mean a
winter of interrupted humanitarian supplies, further fighting, more
ethnic cleansing, and who knows what?
19
And in that context isn't Professor Lampe's comment about Am-
bassador Kirkpatrick's analogy to Munich and Sudetenland correct?
No one came in then to limit the unjust occupation of that portion
of Czechoslovakia with peacekeeping forces that had the right to
stand up and resist further Nazi aggression. Is that a question that
is possible to parse and figure out what I
ETHNIC CLEANSING
Mr. Gutman. Congressman, may I make one comment regarding
ethnic cleansing?
Ethnic cleansing has continued throughout the entire period of
the peace process. The peace process has done nothing to curb it.
It continues today, and the estimate of the international relief
agencies who are on the ground is that this agreement does not
really protect the minorities in the various places they are
Mr. Berman. And the peacekeeping forces would have no ability
to deal with that?
Mr. Gutman. I am honestly not sure.
Mr. Lampe. We are not sure.
Mr. Gutman. Because the negotiators and their spokesmen can-
not say whether the forces are going to do anything to protect the
minorities. But I will say that the expectation is that ethnic cleans-
ing will probably speed — this is by the relief agencies — will speed
up, and it is a consequence of the agreement.
In other words, if you set up ethnically pure statelets or mini-
states and they are ethnically based, what will happen is that
there will be an expulsion almost automatically of the other nation-
alities from those mini-states.
PEACEKEEPING APPROACH
Ms. KiRKPATRlCK. That is a very important reason for my feeling,
my conviction, that the peacekeeping approach in fact will not
achieve virtually any of the goals which we might set for it, be-
cause the peacekeeping forces have been present. Unlike Czecho-
slovakia, they have been present. But like Czechoslovakia, nothing
good has happened as a consequence of it. Peacekeeping forces did
not prevent ethnic cleansing. They did not prevent starvation. They
did not lift sieges. You know, the fact is that President Clinton's
decision to airlift thousands of tons of food and medicine has done
more for towns, civilian populations under siege, in fact, than
UNPROFOR forces, which is the reason that most Bosnians and
Croatians are deeply tempted to ask for the withdrawal of
UNPROFOR forces.
Mr. Lampe. Well, the failure, I would argue, of the UNPROFOR,
is passive rules of engagements and small contingents, that to me
is simply an argument for the larger actively engaged force.
And, Congressman, I think there is room in this further round
of bargaining that is coming now to push for the kind of explicit
guarantees for minorities that actually were in and should have
been strongly placed into the original Vance-Owen plan.
I wonder Misha Glenny has any sense of whether the various
sides would respond to any bargaining on that score for minority
guarantees.
20
Mr. Glenny. No, I am afraid they wouldn't. You know, this
agreement, as I said earlier on, is deeply flawed and it does — now,
this agreement, it does legitimize ethnic cleansing.
I might add that the bulk of ethnic cleansing going on at the mo-
ment is between Muslims and Croats, and it is not between Serbs
and Muslims so much now. Once we recognize
Mr. Berman. Mr. Gutman disagrees with you.
Mr. Gutman. Sure. In my statement I have included a list of four
or five examples of ethnic cleansing that is going on in the Serb
territories as well.
Mr. Glenny. Yes. But the bulk of cleansing at the moment is
going on in Mostar. The bulk of cleansing is going on in Vitez, in
Bugojno, and so on and so forth. I mean it has been done by the
Serbs
Mr. Berman. By both Croatian and Bosnian forces?
Mr. Glenny. By both Croatian and Bosnian, that is, largely Mus-
lim forces. The fact of the matter is once we recognize Croatia with-
out getting the prior agreement of the Serbian minority in Croatia,
then Bosnia-Hercegovina is finished. It is a victim of regional impe-
rialism, that is, Serbian and Croatian imperialism.
And we created that situation by allowing the Germans to go
ahead and recognize Croatia when the Serbs were saying we will
kill everybody if you go ahead and do this. Until that time, 20,000
people had been killed. Once Croatia was recognized, the increase
in the number of deaths in Bosnia-Hercegovina was tenfold, up to
200,000. That was our mistake. Germany has to live with it. And
I am afraid everybody else that followed Germany's role has to live
with it as well. That is the responsibility.
Mr. Berman. I am going to have to ask for a recess at this time
so I can go vote. I see everybody else has just about left. Unless,
Mr. Oberstar, you want to question now and miss the vote?
Oh, OK. Be right back.
[Recess].
Chairman Hamilton. The committee will resume its sitting,
please.
Mr. Menendez.
Mr. Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank the panel, as my other colleagues have.
LACK OF EUROPEAN WILL
As I listened, I am concerned about not only what we do here but
where we go in the future, and I have two questions, particularly.
One I think in part may have been answered earlier, but I would
like to hear the responses of others, and that is my perception of
a lack of European will in this process.
You know it has been said that what is past is prologue, and I
am looking here as we try to grapple with what we do now — I
think there were opportunities at one time and they were lost. But
what we do now is one question which is very important. But what
lessons do we get from this for the future?
And so my two questions to the panel are: I heard Mr. Glenny
talk about historical aspects. I don't quite know that I can accept
those as a simple answer to the lack of European will here and the
question of its will for the future. So I would like to hear from the
21
panel: what do you think its will will be in this case as we proceed
on the issues and what will it be in the future?
And secondly, what lessons do we, the United States, take from
this as we look toward those who say that these ethnic wars in the
former Yugoslavia are just unique to them, which I don't nec-
essarily believe, or are a prototype of the type of ethnic crises and
conflicts that we will see in other parts of the world?
And if they are, then what is it that we as a nation should be
prepared to do both preemptively as we see various tinderboxes in
different places ready to explode?
And I offer that to anyone on the panel. And maybe Ambassador
Kirkpatrick will go first.
Ms. Kirkpatrick. Thank you. I would just like to say that I actu-
ally don't believe that the conflict in what was formerly Yugoslavia
is an ethnic conflict. You know, I think if it were an ethnic conflict
based on historical ethnic differences, then we would see the same
kind of conflict in relationship to the separation of Czechoslovakia,
for example. I believe that it is a problem of political leadership
above all, and that the government of Serbia under the leadership
of Milosevic is, in fact, expansionist and violent, and that we have
one more example of the danger of violent expansionist regimes.
And one of the morals of the story is to just work harder to en-
sure that such regimes do not come into being and are not viable,
and to in fact work harder for the establishment of democracies.
That is not quite good enough. But I think it's important to be
clear about the importance of the nature of the regime and the
quality of the political leadership.
I think that is a reason that there has not been violence in Rus-
sia. Imagine how much violence there could have been in relation-
ship to the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the establishment
of independent states around the borders of Russia. But there
hasn't been, except now in Georgia, and maybe in Azerbaijan it is
beginning.
I believe, though, that effective, more or less democratic leader-
ship was able to prevent that developing, and I just think it is use-
ful to be clear about it.
Mr. Lampe. Congressman, if I could endorse your imperative to
look to the future. I would however note that in the case of the eth-
nic groups in the former Yugoslavia, unlike Czechoslovakia, there
is the memory of the killing in World War II partly connected with
the wider events of World War II and partly with ethnic animos-
ities on the scene, so that sons or even some of the participants
from that strife are involved again, and that was not the case in
Czechoslovakia.
But I did think the shock of this has had some value in Europe.
I think that many leaders in Europe are looking to do more, and
I think there is an opening for American leadership here.
What we can do about better political leadership in the former
Yugoslavia? I would agree with Ambassador Kirkpatrick, that that
has been a huge part of the problem. In fact, I think the existing
ethnic animosities would not have come forward with better politi-
cal leadership from the various Yugoslav parts, but it is too late
now.
22
Mr. Glenny. I would just like to say on this question that I be-
lieve that both Europe and the United States chronically underesti-
mated the impact of the collapse of communism on pan-European
stability; i.e. stability of Western Europe and Eastern Europe.
We have made in Europe one or two extremely grave mistakes
in our response to the Yugoslav crisis. In defense of my continental
compatriots, however, we have also made a substantial effort in
terms of delivering humanitarian aid to Bosnia-Hercegovina and
for maintaining some sort of peace in Croatia.
We have got well over 15,000 troops — this is Europe as a whole —
stationed in Croatia and in Bosnia-Hercegovina. And although the
United States has made a fantastically welcome effort in terms of
supplying food by air to the Muslim enclaves in the Gorazde, in
Mostar and elsewhere, that the capital, Sarajevo, and several other
towns in Bosnia-Hercegovina have survived over the past year ex-
clusively by dint of the UNPROFOR operation in Bosnia-
Hercegovina, which is peopled largely by Europeans.
Mr. Menendez. Hopefully, we have had a wake-up call on both
sides of the continent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hamilton. OK. The last of the members who were
here at the start of the meeting is Mr. McCloskey. He will be fol-
lowed by Mr. Roth.
Mr. McCloskey.
Mr. McCloskey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
CONCENTRATION CAMPS
I commend you for putting together this invaluable and gifted
panel. I want to particularly welcome Roy Gutman. His contribu-
tion, Mr. Chairman, to the cause of humanity has been invaluable.
He was the first to reveal that concentration camps, which, by the
way, to the best of our knowledge, still exist.
As his book shows, in spite of all the intelligence sources avail-
able to Western governments, somehow word about the camps was
not getting out.
In addition, it is of historical importance that Ambassador Kirk-
patrick put on the record her analysis of not only the tragedy and
the fall of Yugoslavia, but also of what is now at stake for us in
the region. This will help all of us to decide whether to deploy so-
called peacekeeping troops in a really immoral, dysfunctional, im-
possible situation.
Even though they will be in a passive or nonaggressive role, our
troops will, in effect, wind up in the crossfire between Muslims,
Serbs and Croats. The effect of their presence would really be to
ratify Serb gains. I don't see how that can work.
Ambassador, I want to commend you for your opening statement.
I think it is right on point and should be widely disseminated.
I found your comment about a "fig leaf to be very appropriate
if the Bosnian government accepted the Owen-Milosevic Plan, they
would not do so willingly. I said last week that such an acceptance
would come from a gun to Bosnian President Izetbegovic's head,
but that is not quite accurate. It is really a gun to the collective
heads of all his people.
23
So he is obviously in an impossible situation. He almost has to
say yes. But, given the caveats that the Bosnian parliament is im-
posing on acceptance, he may still say no.
What do you see happening if the Bosnian government does not
ratify, Madam Ambassador? I don't see any willingness in the
West, including our own government, for a 'Hift and strike" oper-
ation. What are we looking at this winter?
UNPROFOR MANDATE
Ms. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Congressman. I believe that we
are looking at mass starvation and more deaths than last winter
because the population now is weakened, having suffered from mal-
nutrition and homelessness, and the most terrible kinds of abuse.
It is my understanding that the parliament of Croatia is discuss-
ing this. The parliament of Croatia has decided that they will not
extend the UNPROFOR mandate, and I believe that the Bosnian
parliament will do the same. This is my understanding of what is
now in process.
So I think that we will be confronted with an even starker deci-
sion, if possible. And I am not sure it is possible, but more stark
if possible. But whether we are in fact prepared to stand by pas-
sively while aggression sponsored from Serbia is replenished on a
daily basis — as I am told by a Slovenian defense official — replen-
ished on a daily basis with supplies and weapons and ammunition
and food from Serbia while, you know, while it wipes out the popu-
lation of Bosnia and Bosnian Muslims. I don't know whether we
can do this or not.
Frankly, I hope we cannot. It will give us a kind of measure of
who we are at this moment in our century.
Mr. McCloskey. I thank you very much, Madam Ambassador.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hamilton. Mr. Roth.
Mr. Roth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It's interesting that we are having this panel here today. Yester-
day, we debated on the floor Somalia and how we are going to get
out of Somalia. And Somalia, I mean there we are just faced with
a gang of hoodlums. But look what we are faced with in Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
Now, people here have had all kinds of metaphors — 1939 in
Czechoslovakia. What happens if this is 1914? And what happens
if we go into Bosnia-Hercegovina and we inflame that entire area?
Why wouldn't that happen?
Look what is going on in Georgia. Look what is going on through-
out the entire area. Wouldn't it be much better for us not to be in-
volved, not to put our troops in?
If I read Ambassador Kirkpatrick's statement, it's like a clarion
call — let's get involved. Isn't that very dangerous?
Ms. Kirkpatrick. May I?
Mr. Roth. Yes.
DEPLOYMENT OF U.S. TROOPS
Ms. KmKPATRlCK. My recommendation is that we not deploy
American armed troops — American forces — to Bosnia or the former
Yugoslavia. I regretted the President's decision to deploy American
24
forces to Macedonia because I think that constitute a kind of trip-
wire.
I do not believe we should deploy 50,000 U.S. troops or 25,000
or 10,000 U.S. troops to Bosnia.
I do believe that we should take the lead in lifting the arms em-
bargo and we should assist, as this committee decided under the
Hyde amendment, I think, to assist the Bosnians in securing arms,
and if necessary, as a kind of last resort I would support the use
of U.S. airpower in a very sharply focused, targeted fashion to
produce a maximum impact.
But I do not believe the United States should become involved
in a ground war in Yugoslavia.
Mr. Roth. Let me ask you, yesterday, or day before yesterday,
the President enunciated the Clinton doctrine at the U.N. He had
four criteria for getting involved. What do you think of those cri-
teria for us here in Congress to look at?
Ms. Kirkpatrick. You know, I read that very carefully, Con-
gressman. I may be wrong, even after having read it carefully, but
I believe that they weren t criteria. They looked like criteria, and
when you read them carefully it turned out that they were ques-
tions which he said the United States was now insisting that the
United Nations confront before it made a decision to go into a coun-
try.
But it didn't set up criteria and it told us nothing about what the
United States would do in relationship to the answers to those var-
ious questions, I think.
Mr. Lampe. Congressman, can I make one comment on that?
Mr. Roth. Yes.
Mr. Lampe. It is that UNPROFOR has included many brave sol-
diers; there are some who have lost their lives in Bosnia, and
UNPROFOR has done quite some good in many ways, as Misha
Glenny pointed out. But UNPROFOR is there under a mistaken
mission. It is there as a peacekeeping force, and there was no peace
when it became a peacekeeping force there. It should have been a
peace making force or it shouldn't have been assigned in that ca-
pacity.
So all the awkwardness of UNPROFOR, all the clumsiness, all
the mistakes really come back to the question of mission. Mission
is vital, and this was the wrong mission.
Mr. Glenny. May I comment on this issue in terms of whether
U.S. troops should be there or not. Together Western Europe and
the United States invested an enormous amount of resources and
money in winning the cold war and in creating a tremendous mili-
tary and security machine — NATO.
Now that we nave won the cold war and we have a chance to go
forward, we need that military machine more than ever, and we
need stability in Europe more than ever. I do believe that we are
at the beginning of a 1914 scenario in Europe, and that we have
to do something to stop that.
I do not believe that by bombing the Serbs in Bosnia-Hercegovina
you are going to do that, because all you are going to do then is
incur the wrath and the ire of the Russians, who despite all their
economic problems, are extremely well armed. The Russian Foreign
Minister, Andrey Kozyrev, who is a friend, very much so, of the
25
United States and Europe, in my opinion, has warned time and
time again that this will have an extremely negative effect on the
situation inside Russia.
We need American troops in Bosnia-Hercegovina to stop this war
from spreading. You can, of course, it is your sovereign right to de-
cide to withdraw American troops from Europe and from European
operations. I would plead with you to try and persuade your con-
stituents to understand that it is vital tnat the United States re-
mains in Europe
Mr. Roth. My time is up, so I can't ask any more questions. I
would just say this: I am supposed to encourage my constituents.
If peace is in jeopardy in Europe, then let the Europeans take the
lead for a change.
Chairman Hamilton. Mr. Oberstar.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for bring-
ing together a very lively panel with widely divergent, though in
some respects convergent, views.
PARTITION OF BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA
First, an observation. After many years of studying the region,
meeting with people from the region, having more than a passing —
my ancestry on father's side is Slovene — I am convinced that the
plan to partition Bosnia-Hercegovina is a curse upon the region. Its
acceptance by the international community will condemn the peo-
ple thereto an endless cycle, internecine or fratricidal war, IRA-
Northern Ireland-style, but with much more unforgiving hatred
and brutality than we have ever seen in Northern Ireland or to-
ward England, and for an indeterminate future.
^ And what this panel has offered us is somewhat an analogy of
fighting a forest fire, which we have some experience in northern
Minnesota: on the one hand, the proposal to try to contain and con-
trol the fire, the Geneva plan, with a sort of peacekeeping force; on
the other hand, suggestions that we allow the fire to burn out or
even start a backfire by lifting the arms embargo and using air
strikes.
But I think that lifting the arms embargo is just simply adding
oxygen to the forest fire. The problem is that fire is needed — and
if it is helped — to burn out hundreds of thousands of more people
are going to die.
And I think Ambassador Kirkpatrick's point that the Serbs un-
derstand only the language of force, I think that is right, though
we didn't use that force at the time when we should nave. There
was an opportunity to do that.
And, as Mr. Gutman said, this is not a war among equals. That
is true to. The only equality is the level of hatred for one another.
I remember so well the history I read of the region following par-
tition after, or joining of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes, and a German observer said, "Yes, that is right" — in the
Serbo-Croatian language the initials are SHS — "Serbski, Hrvatski,
Slovenski" — and in German "die Hassenischte" — they hate each
other.
That hatred continues. It was abated for a time. And I think
there was — if there were a decisive point in the evolution of post-
Tito Yugoslavia, it was that moment, June 1991, when Secretary
26
of State Baker went to Belgrade, on June 12, and he emerged from
a meeting of the presidency and said that the United States stands
firmly for the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia, defying history, de-
fying what had happened.
And if the United States had taken its historical stand in favor
of the self-determination of peoples and said that what the plebi-
scite in Slovenia directed and what the plebiscite in Croatia di-
rected should not be suppressed or interfered with.
It is evident if the people wanted separation and independence
and stood for it, I think, with a clear determination of force, the
Serbs would not have attacked.
We missed that point in history, and I don't — you know, in say-
ing all this, I don't have a solution. Our choice is only do we go
in and stop the war and enforce the peace, or do we somehow stand
around and wait for peace to happen itself and then come in with
others and enforce an internally agreed upon peace, and that is not
going to happen.
Mr. Lampe. Congressman, if I could respond to the way that you
have put all of the terrible alternatives here in front of us and put
forward the notion of controlling the forest fire, such fire fighting
has serious problems and it is lamentable in many respects, but
compared to the alternatives it does seem to be the only choice that
is left.
There is controversy about what Secretary Baker actually said in
Belgrade in June of 1991. There is a version that says, "We support
in the United States territorial integrity and democracy in Yugo-
slavia, but if we have to choose between the two, we would choose
democracy first." But that is not written down in anyway that I
have seen.
But in any case, we are a long way from there, and down in a
circle where the choices are by any standard worse than they were.
Chairman Hamilton. Mr. Leach.
Mr. Leach. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your calling
this hearing and have been very interested in all the comments. In
tying them together, I think when Mr. Hyde referenced the word
"intractable" that is the most descriptive word of the day.
I also think Professor Lampe is right to talk about alternatives
at various points in time.
Here let me just say, Ambassador Kirkpatrick, I find your cri-
tique of everything that has happened terribly valid. On the other
hand, I am not sure I am persuaded by your alternative. One of
our problems is how to stand up for the principle that aggression
shouldn't be rewarded in the context of the current conflict. If you
suggest that it is wholly and unambiguously an international con-
flict to which America must vigorously respond, but then severely
limit our military options, it suggests a kind of posturing statement
rather than a serious one.
We all recognize that there are aspects of American policy that
make it difficult to consider sending ground troops in. Your alter-
native, though, of air strikes has some diffident appeal as well as
some disadvantages too. Because if you are going to have air
strikes, you are going to have to be able to assert that they in and
of themselves are going to turn back a Croatian and Serbian policy
that you may not Tike. And if they can't, I mean if you can't reach
27
that conclusion, and I frankly have a hard time reaching it, then
almost inevitably that means you have got to send in troops.
And so then air strikes are a leading indicator of troops coming
in because I don't think you can strike and then rule out further
escalation if airstrikes fail.
STRIKE AND LIFT
We also have a problem with the policy of strike and lift, and I
think the case for lifting the embargo is probably stronger than
otherwise, although I realize there is a pro and con to it. But if you
combine lifting the embargo with airstrikes, almost certainly the
Europeans will define this as Americanizing responsibility and they
are going to want to be withdrawing even further from the limited
accountability they have so far undertaken, and that strikes me as
an extraordinary dilemma that the United States should kind of
shy away from.
Now, in your written statement you pose the problem of U.S.
troops not under U.S. command and control. That is one of the is-
sues of multilateralism that all societies face, and particularly the
United States.
On the other hand, if we have total U.S. command and control,
we also have a circumstance of Americanizing accountability. And
my own sense in all of this is that all of the alternatives are lousy,
but your prescription goes the furthest toward delegitimatizing the
peace negotiation process. If you do that, you almost guarantee con-
tinued conflict. Professor Lampe suggested then, and to read his
first paragraph, it will surely cost many more thousands of lives
and spread beyond the Bosnian border, most likely to Kosovo, Mac-
edonia and beyond. That is, if the war continues or resumes next
spring. And that has great difficulty.
So it strikes me that the dilemma for the United States in terms
of the least bad alternatives almost inevitably comes down to hav-
ing to support a process, even though the basis for that process is
pretty lousy.
As Jim Oberstar said, we might have gone in at an earlier time.
But having not gone in, we are somewhat accountable for the situa-
tion we are now in,- and the best we can do is support a process,
as weak as that process may be.
If you support a process, then what accountability comes next?
And the accountability that could come next is some sort of peace-
keeping arrangement.
Then the question becomes whether we play a big role or a small
role? Mr. Glenny suggests, and I think he reflects a European atti-
tude, that Americans have to come in big. I am not so sure that
is our desire.
This also raises an interesting dilemma, on a nationalistic basis,
of command and control. I think there are advantages of having a
NATO commander from, let's say, Holland or whatever, so that it
is clearly primarily European accountability.
But are you opposed to any and all American involvement if
there is a peace agreement that takes place or are you opposed to
any ground forces under any conditions at this time? And if you are
opposed to any and all American ground forces, can you possibly
say this is fundamentally a moral issue, that aggression has to be
28
averted? Because if it is, then you have — that strikes me an im-
moral response.
I mean is that a valid way of looking at this or not?
Ms. Kirkpatrick. Is that a question to me?
Mr. Leach. Yes.
Ms. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Congressman Leach.
First of all, I don't seriously absolutely oppose any and all Amer-
ican ground troops anyplace in what was Yugoslavia, in Macedonia,
on its borders or in the country. I regret it but I don't necessarily
definitively oppose it.
What strikes me about this, the process, if you will, is will we
support a process? Should we support a process, oppose a process,
take part in a process? What kind of a process is it?
You know, do we want to take part in a process that promotes
peace and justice and respect the U.N. charter, for example, and
values of the charter, and of our Constitution? Sure, I think we
should support such a process.
Should we participate in a process or commit ourselves to enforc-
ing a process that simply repeats all the moral and political and
finally military mistakes of appeasement? No, I don't think we
should enforce such a process.
Sometimes this discussion about Bosnia reminds me of, you
know, what it would have been like to propose a process to end
World War II at the point the British troops were at Dunkirk and
the Nazi's controlled the Benelux states and France. And we said,
"Well, this is a terrible war and many people are dying and suffer-
ing, and surely we want to be a part of the peace process. We don't
want to be a part of a war process."
I guess I think that it is, finally, not acceptable to ask for an
American President to ask American Armed Forces to enforce a
peace that violates the most fundamental values of the charter, for
example, which are in fact to, you know, forbid aggression and to
provide self-defense.
ARMS EMBARGO
You know one of the reasons that I think the arms embargo is
so heinous is that it is a violation of Article 51 of the U.N. charter
which guarantees states — it doesn't guarantee, it recognizes — the
inherent right of states to self-defense. The arms embargo has de-
nied to Bosnia and attempted to deny to Croatia the right to self-
defense.
And it is a violation of the prohibitions on aggression.
I think that it will not bring peace. Now, you know, I remember
I was in France at the time that then President of the EC, Mr.
Puce of Luxembourg, said about the outbreak of violence in Croatia
and the attacks on Croatia — at that point Serbian attacks on Cro-
atia— that this was a European war which was the business of Eu-
ropeans to deal with, and that there was no role for Americans in
it.
I had a sense at that moment that President Bush must have
thought to himself. Great! You take this one! You know, and we all
know what happened, and I don't have any further comment on
that.
29
I think your questions and comments are all good ones, let me
say.
Mr. Leach. Let me — Mr. Chairman, we are in the business of
finding great insight in all these perspectives. I think your perspec-
tive is loaded with insight.
It could well be this is an issue that in the final measure the
United States should simply declare as European responsibility.
That is a quite conceivable endpoint.
On the other hand, I think if the United States plays a role, we
ought to be very cautious about anything that (a) is so belligent
that it causes more problems than otherwise and (b) de-
Europeanizes the conflict. I am also apprehensive about air strikes.
I think we have to be careful not to deny the option, but at the
same time be very cautious about employing the option.
If there is a peace settlement, I think we ought to reserve the
option to participate depending upon the circumstance at the time
without necessarily advocating that we get involved.
But I don't think we should deny the option. And I think all of
these options have to be maintained on the table despite the histor-
ical circumstance that is so unneat.
Mr. Glenny. May I make a very brief comment about the pres-
ence of American troops and why it is so important for the Euro-
peans? It is that we have extremely limited resources because Ger-
man troops and Italian troops cannot be deployed in Europe, and
we already have substantial troops deployed inside Bosnia-
Hercegovina and Croatia already.
That is why I appeal as I do for a substantial American force be-
cause the Europeans cannot do it on their own, firstly, and we
don't have, Europe as a whole, the same professional standards in-
side our militaries. There is too much variation between the var-
ious countries and we simply don't have the men
Mr. Roth. Mr. Chairman, I am constrained to ask. There are
German troops in Somalia. Why couldn't you have German troops
in Bosnia? That seems like a weak argument.
Mr. Glenny. Because German troops inside Somalia do not have
the same historical echoes as German troops inside the former
Yugoslavia or anywhere else in Europe.
Chairman Hamilton. Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple
of brief comments and then one question.
You know, I would agree with Ambassador Kirkpatrick when she
makes the point about President Bush's view that this was a Euro-
pean problem.
I remember very clearly that with the perhaps exception of Ger-
many, every other nation, its foreign minister, its President and all
other players were admonishing the U.S. to stay out. Lord
Carrington would call General Scowcroft and others and say this
is an European problem; former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance
would say likewise. When we were in — Frank Wolf and I were in
Vukovar and Ocijek 3 months after the fighting began in Croatia,
everyone with whom we spoke to other than those who are in the
cities being decimated were saying that it is a European problem,
other than those who were being attacked, of course, or the Euro-
pean diplomats with whom we spoke.
30
The President finally came around to a different view, and Sec-
retary Baker, later on when they saw that the Europeans were
dropping the ball. So, you know, for whatever it is worth, the Presi-
dent was heeding the advice of those who were seemingly closest
to the fray and took his cues accordingly.
Let me just say, Professor Lampe, when a couple of us, and I
think, Frank, you were there, members of the Helsinki Commission
met with President Izetbegovic a few weeks ago over on the Senate
side, he was painfully candid that the Bosnian Serb military lead-
ership had completely and totally dismissed the threat of an air
strike from the Clinton administration. They thought it was bluff
and bluster.
The political leadership of the Serbs thought it might be real.
Milosevich certainly stepped in and all of a sudden had the face of
a peacemaker, which was somewhat of a strange deal, but the
Bosnian Serb commander said, No way that is going to happen,
and were advising their counterparts who were working the politi-
cal end of it not to give in, to hunker down because the American
threat was a false one.
I say that because now we are dealing with another potential for-
eign policy decision that we will be called upon to make, the pos-
sible deployment of American troops. And yet in your testimony
you point out that the "getting" in criteria is troubling to you be-
cause it seems to be set up in such away that we never get in.
And, you know, some of us who have watched the President care-
fully over these many months, looking at a budget that was filled
with smoke and mirrors while all the while the testimony was to
the contrary, who have watched him talk about NAFTA but then
the word seem to be going through that this isn't very high on the
agenda, and time and time again a stated position is not backed
up with the kind of ancillary support that is necessary to secure
the day.
Now, looking at all of these criteria, and you talk about most
troubling that there be a pulling back of troops and heavy weapons,
is it your view, and if you would amplify on that, whether or not
you think that is feasible that this pull back can occur or whether
or not this is another ruse that will disappoint in the end because
in the end there will be no troop deployment?
Mr. Lampe. I wouldn't call it a ruse, Congressman, but I would
call it an illusion that this could, in fact, take place in some sort
of verifiable way.
I am glad you raise the issue of air strikes. I think it is under-
standable that the Bosnian Serb command after the several occa-
sions when it was promised that we would do something— the next
time you people step out of line in comes the U.S. Air Force — and
it hasn't come too many times for there to be any credibility at the
top.
At the same time one hears, and maybe Misha Glenny would
have some comment on this, from the commanders or intelligence
from the Bosnian Serb side, that were there to be some use of
American airpower it would be greatly feared and respected.
At the same time I would add the comments of Austrian defense
analysts who are, as you know, deadly determined to oppose the
Bosnian Serb side, but have the great fear that a first strike would
31
have some significant effect, but after that there would be such a
scattering of the mortars and men that you wouldn't find any sig-
nificant forces to strike after one strike.
Mr. Smith. Could you amplify on what troubles you with regards
to the "getting" in criteria which you spoke to in your testimony?
Mr. Lampe. What troubles me there is what happens if there is
a settlement that the Izetbegovic government can sign off on and
then there is a period of weeks or even months when there is no
one on the ground to enforce that settlement. What if there isn't
a prospect that there is a separating force is coming? Then that
will just be another cease-fire that will not hold, and the elements
of any successful longer term cease-fire are the very points of with-
drawing the heavy weapons and the troops pulling back. I don't
think the local commanders, maybe even the top people too, but
certainly the local commanders are going to do that pulling back
there until they see the U.S. marshal and the smell of gun smoke.
And that is not necessarily gun smoke. But the smell of it, I
think, is about all we have got left.
Mr. Smith. Well, if that is a precondition, does that give the Serb
military commanders a kind of veto power to prevent the deploy-
ment from occurring?
Mr. Lampe. I think that actual deployment might be resisted.
But then if that is going to be resisted, then we shouldn't come in
because we are not doing our part for what would be a credible
agreement for the Bosnian Muslims.
Chairman Hamilton. Mr. Bereuter.
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I have to respectfully disagree with my colleague, Mr.
Oberstar. The Bush administration's decision, as voiced by Sec-
retary Baker's Belgrade speech in 1990 was exactly the right deci-
sion.
SE LF-DETERMINATION
Unfortunately, when self-determination was expressed in Slove-
nia and then subsequently in Croatia, it ignited the hatreds and it
gave an opportunity for all of the conflagration to be ignited. It was
entirely predictable. In fact, our intelligence committee predicted in
graphic detail precisely what would happen right down through
Bosnia into Macedonia.
Sometimes there are more important things, believe it or not,
than self-determination.
MACEDONIA
But I want to talk about Macedonia, and particularly raise ques-
tions for Mr. Glenny, although others could offer their comments
too. First, to make it clear, I am one of those people that believes
we ought to have 1,000 or 2,000 heavily armed U.S. troops with
clear, no nonsense rules of engagement under a U.S. commander
in Macedonia. Not as a tripwire, because they wouldn't be. They
would be a firebreak force to keep us from internationalizing or
Balkanizing this war and bringing terrible conflicts between NATO
allies Greece and Turkey as well as Albanian and Bulgarian dif-
ficulties.
32
Mr. Glenny, I know you are particularly knowledgeable on Mac-
edonia, although probably all of you are. I have three questions.
First, is the greatest problem confronting Macedonia the threat of
invasion from Serbia, or Serbian actions at least, or is it the grow-
ing internal problems in Macedonia with a large Albanian minority
and the Slav Macedonians?
Second, what do you expect to happen if the major ethnic Alba-
nian party pulls out of the fragile centrist coalition that now rules
Macedonia?
Third, should we, the United States, move more quickly or move
at all to full diplomatic relations with Macedonia? And if so, why?
Mr. Glenny. As regards the first question, my belief is that the
primary problem in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is
Albanian and Slav Macedonian relations inside that republic. That
it is a deterioration of the relationship between those two commu-
nities which will spark a war.
Then comes the secondary problem of intervention in one form or
another from Albania, from Serbia, and from Bulgaria. Greece and
Turkey, I do not believe in the first instance, would become in-
volved in that war, but they would certainly be involved by proxy.
So the main problem for me is Albanian-Slav-Macedonian rela-
tions. Serbia is not about to invade Macedonia. But if there was a
breakdown of internal stability in Macedonia, then certainly I be-
lieve Serbia would move and try and lop off the northern part.
For that reason, your suggestion of deploying 1,000 to 2,000
heavily armed troops on the borders, in my opinion, is a good one,
so that in the instance of serious trouble between the Albanians
and the Slav Macedonians, then the surrounding states would not
respond, would not be tempted to come in.
As regards the PDP, the Albanian party inside Macedonia, and
if the PDP pulls out, there is a very disturbing conflict within the
PDP at the moment. If the radicals went inside the PDP, then we
could be heading toward a breakdown of stability inside Macedo-
nia.
My own feeling is, however, at the moment that they will not
succeed in doing so, and that we will see for the next year or so
before elections take place a maintenance of the coalition between
Macedonians and Albanians which is exceptionally important.
As regards full diplomatic relations with Macedonia, you have
got to handle the Greek problem very, very carefully, because one
of the things accentuating and making worse the problems inside
Macedonia are the sanctions on Serbia and the deterioration of the
economic situation inside Macedonia.
And if Greece were to respond and Mr. Papandreou, who is now
favored to win the elections on October 10, were to respond to the
establishment of full relations with Macedonia as the Republic of
Macedonia by imposing a complete blockade of Macedonia's south-
ern border, then this really would have very, very severe con-
sequences for the Macedonian economy.
And so, you know, however awkward the Greeks sometimes may
appear to be on this issue, one does have to take into account what
they are saying for pragmatic reasons, if nothing else.
Mr. Lampe. Congressman, let me second what Misha Glenny has
said. I very much regret the political circumstances in Greece that
33
do inhibit the United States from the immediate diplomatic rec-
ognition.
There is absolutely no objective reason not to do that. The EC
had identified Macedonia and Slovenia as the two Yugoslav Repub-
lics several years ago that did deserve immediate recognition.
At the same time I would endorse your notion of the several
thousand troops ready, in fact, with active rules of engagement be-
cause the Bulgarian Prime Minister, Lyuben Berov, told me this
summer when I asked about the 320 and the very cautious
UNPROFOR-like rules under which they were there, he said well
that we really cannot take that as any serious enterprise. The Mac-
edonians would have to protect them from anything that would
come their way, rather than the other way around. It made me feel
embarrassed to have to hear that from a foreign leader.
Chairman Hamilton. Mr. Royce.
PUNISHING AGGRESSION
Mr. Royce. Yes. I think it is always good at some point after we
have talked ourselves into inaction to get back to basic principles,
and the basic principle in this case which I think we have to re-
member is that this plan is a plan which is going to reward. It is
going to reward aggression.
And in that sense it is not unlike the partition of Czechoslovakia
in the sense that it wasn't just Chamberlain allowing the partition
to occur that caused so much animosity. It was the fact that he
wasn't a signatory to the agreement.
In this case we are asked to be not only signatories to the agree-
ment but we are asked to enforce the peace after the partition has
occurred.
My own observation is that we would be better served by sticking
with basic principles and lifting the arms embargo and punishing
aggression by bombing the Serb artillery positions. But if we don't
have the will to do that, if we aren't going to follow through with
principle, then I do not understand the United States making the
commitment to take 25,000 troops and hold them as potential hos-
tages to everyone who is frustrated in this conflict.
Mr. Glenny stated that peace is in jeopardy in Europe, and the
plan here is this appeasement may work to salvage that peace. I
don't understand why it should be 25,000 American troops that
would be put into this situation where they are to be held hostage
by all of the frustrations of all of the people in the former Yugo-
slavia now that the United States has failed to act.
Mr. Glenny. I understand your concerns, sir. I sympathize with
them very much.
Remember this is 25,000 troops within a projected force of
50,000. Twenty-five thousand other troops would come largely from
European Community countries, also some Scandinavian countries,
and possibly from Russia as well. So that is one thing.
Secondly, the fact of the matter is the international community
contributed substantially to the creation of this situation — I must
stress this — by recognizing Croatia prematurely. It is obvious from
June 1990 onwards that Yugoslavia in its federal state could not
continue and at some point we would have to recognize individual
states.
34
But we could only go ahead with recognition once agreement had
been reached between the majority and minority populations. If we
did that prematurely, which is what happened, we merely fan the
flames of war.
Finally, I would have to say I will be perfectly honest. You know
I have been covering this war from well before the beginning. I
have been watching what is going on in Eastern Europe and the
former Soviet Union. I am really panicking about the future of Eu-
rope now.
I am really worried that we are moving toward an enormous con-
flagration on this continent and that is why I would make — I make
this appeal for the Americans to help us. We need you and we need
you badly. And it is in your interest as well ultimately, I believe.
Chairman Hamilton. Mr. McCloskey has a final question.
Mr. McCloskey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
CONDITIONS IN CAMP
Mr. Gutman, in your book "Witness to Genocide", based on your
trailblazing news dispatches, you describe the conditions in the
concentration camps, the acts of the Serb captors and so forth.
Can you tell us what happened to those camps and those pris-
oners after you got the word out? Specifically, do the camps still
exist and has there been Western access to them? Are the Serbs
out of the genocide business in that particular area?
Mr. Gutman. Congressman, the news reports followed by a great
deal of public attention and statements by governments focused the
world on the Serbs and focused the Serbs on themselves. I think
that it caused political forces within the Bosnian Serb group and
also within Serbia itself to reconsider what they had done, what
they had set up, and almost overnight one of the major camps,
Omarska, where there were at least 2,000 or 3,000 men, was closed
down and the prisoners were dispersed.
Other camps closed in the course of the following month. In fact,
over a period of 4 to 5 months, as I understand it, analysts here
have reached this conclusion, the behavior of the Bosnian Serb
forces was altered significantly. There was a significant reduction
in the genocide. I wouldn't say anyone is on good behavior. But
there were so many delegations coming through, so many questions
being asked, so much interest, that it was not possible to carry on
with this process.
The interest regrettably diminished at the end of last year. There
was not a great deal of followup or follow-through by Western gov-
ernments. It so happens, though, as I mentioned earlier, that the
American Government and other governments began collecting in-
formation from the refugees, from the survivors of these camps,
and this information has now been compiled. It has gone to the
U.N. Commission on War Crimes. It is really quite overwhelming.
It is quite interesting. It is, unfortunately, not available to the pub-
lic.
I think that it is possible though through the use of that informa-
tion to discover just what is the impact of the public attention that
was suddenly focused on the camps at that time. For the sake of
the prisoners, it was really quite beneficial.
Mr. McCloskey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
35
Mr. Lampe. If I could just call the committee's attention to an ar-
ticle by David Ottaway in the Washington Post, I mention it in my
text, on September 12, because that is the best recent update on
what has been happening on other sides in this unfortunate matter
of ethnic cleansing.
Chairman Hamilton. Thank you. Let me express my apprecia-
tion to each one of you for your excellent testimony. We are very
pleased to have had you with us.
The committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:17 p.m., the committee was recessed, to recon-
vene subject to the call of the Chair.]
APPENDIX
Statement before the House of Representatives
Committee on Foreign Affairs
September 29, 1993
By Roy Gutman
Newsday European Correspondent
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. The series
of wars over the succession to Yugoslavia culminating in the
war in Bosnia is clearly an extraordinary event in this post
Cold War era. Despite all the coverage by the news media,
uncertainty and confusion seem to dominate the public
debate. One can only welcome that your decision to hold a
hearing to shed light on the topic; it is an honor to me and
my newspaper to be invited to appear. My published reports
are in a sense my testimony; at the same time, as one of
relatively few Americans to have spent time on the ground
and to have reported some of the terrible events that have
occurred, I feel obliged to make such knowledge or analysis
as I have available to any serious inquiry.
As you weigh the next steps, it may be helpful to
review what has occurred. I am convinced from my own
reporting of a pattern or rather patterns of atrocities,
primarily, but not exclusively, by the Bosnian Serb armed
forces. The patterns include the following: the destruction
and siege of villages and cities, massacres and extra-
judicial executions of unarmed civilians, mass deportations
in subhuman conditions such as cattle cars, rounding up of
enormous numbers of men and a smaller number of women in
camps where chey were beaten or starved to death at the rate
of 50 or 100 a day; the systematic rape of women, singling
out unmarried women of childbearing age; the setting up of
camps where women were held and repaed; the harassment,
robbery, and murder of refugees in flight; the destruction
of every last mosque and now, it appears, every last Roman
Catholic church in the areas under Serb control. There are
only estimates, but it seems quite plausible that 200,000
people have died, most of them civilians unable to defend
themselves .
These add up to a systematic attempt to exterminate
one nation. That is my personal conclusion. A sizable body
of data has beern collected by human rights organizations
such as Helsinki Watch. And the US Government has carried
out a significant effort to gather data. It has made only a
portion of the material available to the public. But such
material as ours and other governments have gathered leads
to ah overwhelming and clear conclusion. The UN Security
Council has acknowledged the gravity o£ the crimes by
setting up the first war crimes tribunal since Nuremberg.
Its primary assignment, if I read the charter correctly, is
(37)
38
to investigate charges of genocide. This assumes the
Security Council can overcome the impasse over the
appointment of a prosecutor.
Within the State Department, the experts have also
analyzed the pattern of atrocities and concluded that it is
genocide. At the political level, however, the executive
branch is still wrestling with what to call it. It recently
came up with an awkward and I think inadequate description:
acts of genocide. Up to now, no Western government has
formally determined that this is genocide under the Genocide
Convention.
I believe that defining and characterizing the event
is the fundamental starting point for any analysis.
Legally, genocide under the international convention
is the attempt to eliminate all or part of a nation, people,
or religious group; and to prevent that group from
reproducing. Genocide is by nature a continuing event. And
this genocide is a continuing event. It is occurring at a
lower, less dramatic level than previously; the analysts say
that some of the worst atrocities were curbed after
international attention was focused on them. But genocide
continues, possibly because no one focuses on it today.
In preparation for this hearing, I contacted several
international relief agencies with staff on the ground in
Bosnia as well as human rights investigators and came up
with a number of examples.
-- Bosnian Serbs continue to operate at least one rape
camp in eastern Bosnia. Bosnian refugees in Europe say their
daughters and relatives aged 11 to 18 are being held there
and sexually abused.
-- systematic persecution of non-Serbs continues in
Banja Luka, the predominantly Serb city in northern Bosnia.
In one recent week, the office of one agency reported the
rape of two 65 -year-old women in the nearby town of
Gradiska; an attack by armed men on an elderly couple in
Banja Luka in which an 80-year-old woman was left stripped
naked; the beating of an old man who was tortured with
burning cigarettes all over his body; and the arrest of the
Muslim mufti or religious leader. Muharem Krzic, an
extraordinary man, the leader of the Muslim SDA party who
has decided to stay in the region to defend the rights of
his fellow non-Serbs, was seized Sept. 11, brutally beaten
and kept incommunicado, then released on Sept. 22.
Nightly, Serb units bomb the residences of several
Muslims and Croats to intimidate them into fleeing their
homes. One typical case was that of "a Muslim woman who sits
before us with a bloodied face," the source said. "Three
armed men came to her apartment today and told her to vacate
her apartment . To encourage her they beat her severely and
kicked her in the face. She may lose an eye as a result of
this attack . "
-- In Janja, Bijelina, and Doboj , Serb authorities
have forced thousands of non-Serbs at gunpoint to give up
their homes, their property, and their cash and then to flee
39
across minefields on the front line into government
territory. This happened this very month.
--In camps in the predominantly Croat region known as
Herceg-Bosna, guards beat prisoners at random with wooden
bars, fired machine guns into the hangars in which prisoners
were held, and beat or tortured at least five prisoners to
death in the past month.
-- Dutch soldiers in Central Bosnia reported that
Bosnian Croat (HVO) forces, after attacking, looting, and
burning the town of Grbavica, played soccer with the severed
head of a victim. "Eight of the soldiers were dressed in
all-black uniforms," the report of the agency said. "About
200 civilians were also in attendance. The soldiers were
singing patriotic songs and marching. They carried a
[Bosnian] flag which was covered in blood." The Dutch UN
troops "witnessed the head being kicked on the ground like a
football and being displayed for the crowd to see."
-- Near Banja Luka, a Boston Globe reporting team
last month visited the village of Liskovac just hours after
Serb paramilitary forces allegedly mutilated and killed five
Muslims. The newspaper's reporter, Sally Jacobs, described
two of the victims. "Emina Turna's body was found lying
behind the barn where she had died of a single bullet to her
head. Two of her fingers had been cut off and her face was
pocked with cigarette burns. So much blood flowed frcm Almaz
Turan's body that by late Monday afternoon the carpet
remained matted and moist. Underneath the table on which he
was found, an orange -handled knife lay amidst dozens of
bloodied family photographs."
-- And finally, Sarajevo, a city of 380,000 under
siege. No citizen can enter or leave, no foreigner for that
matter except aid workers, journalists, UN troops and the
occasional representative of a foreign government. There is
no commerce. For the most part, there have been no public
services whatsoever. The average person has lost 3 0 pounds.
People bake their bread by burning their carpets, their
furniture, their shoes. Their bread if they have it consists
of mostly animal feed.
The suffering I have sketchily described does not
consist of random events carried out by uncontrolled forces
but is the result of decisions by authorities carried out by
the agents of those authorities. The lack of international
attention to them is to be regretted.
The war in Bosnia provides proof that the American
and the world public, just by focusing their attention, can
have impact en events. Media reports a little over a year
age led directly and immediately to the closure of several
Serb detention camps, and the windina down of others.
40
Reports about rape camps and systematic rape also had an
impact, and -some but not all the camps were disbanded; one
fears however that many of the female victims were executed.
The point is to obtain the facts and publish them.
That informs the Western public, and it puts those
responsible on notice that the world is watching. The
reaction of Western governments however has been muted and
confused. At the time of my report on the detention camps in
northern Bosnia, they described the events there, I would
say, mischaracterized -them, as an ancient conflict with deep
roots, a civil war, a religious war, a tribal war. It was
none of those things; it was a war of aggression, a conquest
using genocide as a means.
Working level diplomats at the State Department,
driven by the conviction that gathering the facts was vital
for any policy that would follow brought pressure on their
superiors to start collecting the data. Yet top officials
were slow to respond. They discouraged Congressional and
non -governmental delegations from going to the scene; they
tried to shift the focus away from the events on the ground.
They made misleading public statements. This is the context
in which a group of young and able diplomats resigned in
protest from the State Department over the past year, a
phenmonenon not seen for two decades .
A large body of material on Serb actions and the more
recent ones by Bosnian Croats in "Herceg Bosna" has now been
gathered and analyzed. Part of the lack of understanding in
the general public of what has happened may arise from the
fact that that material gathered and the analysis of the
patterns remains unpublished. The material is still
classified, and I would like to suggest today it should be
made available to the public.
I believe you are interested in the diplomatic
process. The flaws are well known. The process supposedly
was established on the framework of openly stated principles
of international law such the inviolability of
internationally recognized borders, but in practice has
accepted as a basis the violation of the principles of
peaceful change. Operationally, it has failed to seek
recourse to the use of force or when it was available make
use of the threat to achieve diplomatic aims to uphold the
stated principles. It began and still operates on the
assumption that the war in 3osnia is a civil war as if it
were among equals.
In reality, a minority of the population with powerful
backing from outside and control over 50 per cent of the
arms, has mounted sieges of cities, organized camps, and set
the cattern for the atrocities.
41
I quote a senior aid worker i met in Sarajevo. "This
is not a war. This is a slaughter."
The only diplomacy that works in such a case is
coercive diplomacy, that is, diplomacy with clear aims
backed up by the threat of the use of force. But this has
been a case of diplomacy without force.
The negotiators accorded equal weight to an
internationally recognized government and the rebels
carrying out the mayhem and massacres often referred to by
the euphemism "ethnic cleansing." They even accorded
equality to a rump group, the Bosnian croats in "Herceg -
Bosna, " whose leadership was totally devoid of any
legitimacy. The essence of the diplomatic approach was to
accept the partition of Bosnia, the goal of the Serbs. The
Croats in "Herceg Bosna" and Croatia itself, read the tea
leaves correctly and were the first to sign onto the plan.
Human rights finished a distant second.
Yet I might observe that the one aspect of events in
the Balkans to which the general western public can relate
and which matters for the long term stability of Europe is
human rights. It was to my mind the emphasis on human rights
in the Helsinki accords, the slow, steady growth of demand
in the Communist world for Western rights that ensured a
peaceful end to the Communist era. As a citizen, I hate to
think that this very successful process and the principles
hammered out over 15 years will be abandoned without any
second thoughts.
All along, there has been "been an unstated but
fundamental contradiction between the idea of trying the
individuals responsible for the atrocities and negotiating
with them. At some point the decision must be made which way
to go. The negotiators have pursued the course that not only
assumes their eventual exoneration but in fact endorses
their goals, namely apartheid, ethnic separation.
Far from curbing "ethnic cleansing, " the diplomatic
process in fact may have encouraged it. When the Vance-Owen
plan was rejected by the Bosnian Serbs, the Herceg Bosna
Croats decided on their own to start implementing it. They
closed the roads to central Bosnia where Muslims are
concentrated, stopped all supplies to Sarajevo, attacked
villages and massacred the civilians in central Bcsnia, then
rounded up the Muslim men in the Mostar region and set up
detention camps.
The 3osnian government forces went on the center-
offensive and seized big sections of territory as they tried
to clear the routes. Now there are examples of Muslim
atrocities as well.
For the western politicians who one year age said
42
there was a civil war, well, today they can point to one.
But it was a self-fulfilling prophecy; it was avoidable. And
now as the new camps were set up in which as many as 10,000
people were held in subhuman conditions, the negotiations
continued without any pause, camps or no camps. It is
difficult to square that with the London principles of
August 1992 which created the negotiating process. I am not
sure whether those conducting the negotiations consider the
impact of such signals to the parties on the ground.
But in a sense the signals had been given a long time
earlier. Sarajevo, a city of 380,000 men, women, and
children, has been under siege for 18 months. Despite the
circumlocutions of UN spokesmen, the siege continues. The
negotiations go on oblivious of this fact.
From a journalist's point of view, the diplomatic
process is difficult to report. No single government
oversees the process or if there is one, it doesn't report
to the public. There is no Congressional oversight. If there
is a major development, reporters get no briefings. It is
unlike anything I have covered. It has every appearance of
duress .
A quote from Lord Owen during a recent BBC Panorama
production may give insight into the method of negotiation.
First, Radovan Karadzic was on camera saying that the latest
Serb map gave Muslims 30 per cent of the territory, whereas
Lord Owen thought it was only 22 per cent. "We bet whiskey,"
said Mr. Karadzic. They had indeed.
Lord Owen confirmed that that had been the bet.
"At one stage I must say we took a bet. I didn't think
his figures --he claimed they were 28 per cent and I said
they were nearer 24 --we settled on 26.1, so I lost a
bottle of whisky on point one per cent. But he never
produced the map on which the cartographer had done it, and
I, to this day... as far as I was concerned, that didn't
worry me. What I got was a commitment to 26 per cent on a
specific map in front of Milosevic, therefore it's hard to
go back on it, and therefore Milosevic was able to say well
you can make up that extra, that's two per cent extra from
the Serbs and two per cent from the Croats and you've got 3 0
per cent . "
You can see why it is hard for a reporter to cover.
I think no one will deny that the current plan is one
that gives an international seal of approval to the
establishment of state entities based on a principle of
ethnic purity. It was drafted by the Serbs, the Bosnian
Serbs and President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, with
support of Croats, the Heroeg Bosna group with the backing
of President Franjc Cud-mar. of Croatia, to carve uc an
43
integrated, interlinked region, a melting pot republic. In
cities such as Sarajevo, Banja Luka and Mostar, the rate of
inter-ethnic marriage was 3 0 to 3 5 per cent. What is to
happen to the mixed marriages and to the children of mixed
marriages? It looks like this will divide Sarajevo as well:
Sarajevo, the haven of tolerance for centuries for
Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims, and Jews.
One cannot predict whether the carve-up will end the
fighting or usher in a new phase. Those on the ground who
have watched this closely believe it will have vast
implications for the suffering civilians.
There are still many non-Serbs in northern Bosnia, the
so-called Bosnian Krajina. The International Red Cross
thinks there could be as many as 100,000 of the 580,000 who
had been there before the war. Relief agencies expect they
will be expelled as the fulfillment of the plan. They
anticipate mass expulsions in all directions.
So the negotiated settlement may complete the "ethnic
cleansing. "
I tried to find out on the eve of this hearing where
it is that NATO troops are to be stationed in Bosnia to
implement the settlement. The spokesman for Lord Owen and Mr
Stoltenberg could not tell me. Nor could he tell me whether
it will be NATO's responsibility to disarm one or all the
parties or whether it will have the function to provide
protection to the endangered non-Serb minorities in north
Bosnia and if so how.
I conclude by welcoming your interest . You can
understand if I, as a beat reporter who in a sense covers
this committee, refrain from offering policy prescriptions.
I instead wish to state the obvious: it is essential to
understand and agree upon the nature of what has happened.
It is essential to inform the public with a full disclosure
of the facts that have been gathered and the analysis of
those facts; and whatever objective you may choose as a
result of that airing of facts and analysis, it is incumbent
upon you in the government to relate the means to that end.
44
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick
Leavey Professor of Government, Georgetown University
Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
TESTIMONY BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
on
29 September 1993
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for giving me the
opportunity to share my thoughts on the recent developments in Bosnia, including the
Clinton Administration's proposal that thousands of U.S. troops take part in a massive
"peacekeeping" effort.
Several issues of special concern to me are present in the proposed plan for
peacekeeping in Bosnia. I ask myself:
1. Will this "peacekeeping" do justice to basic issues concerning the use of
force, and respect for territorial integrity? or will simply involve Americans
in enforcing an unjust peace?
2. Is it consistent with the responsibilities of the U.S. government to U.S.
armed forces? Or will it put American forces in harm's way, under foreign
command and under rules of engagement which do not permit their
effective defense?
45
3. Will this policy have a reasonable, containable cost, born equitably among
NATO members and other participants? Will it "count" toward U.S. payment
of U.N. peacekeeping costs? Or will the U.S. accept the Secretary
General's insistence that, if NATO commands, NATO not the U.N. pays.
4. When and how will it end?
5. Will the "peacekeeping" approach actually contribute to peace in Central
Europe in the long run, or will it, by accepting territorial conquest, invite
further aggression?
I would like to comment on each of these issues, saving the first for last. I
understand that my information is incomplete.
Traditional U.N. "peacekeeping" operations have some special characteristics.
They are set up with the consent of the parties; they are neutral as between the parties
to a conflict and they use minimum force in the performance of their tasks. They are
carried out under U.N. supervision. And they tend to last forever.
These characteristics will not be present in Bosnia.
Peacekeeping in Bosnia could not be said to rest on consent of the parties.
Moreover, in this instance, there is no real peace to keep, every ceasefire to date has
been violated, and there is every reason to think this pattern will continue.
Moreover, the United States will be put in the position of enforcing an unjust
agreement. A sovereign nation, Bosnia, is being forced to sign on to an agreement that
violates its most basic interests. As Britain and France coerced the leaders of the
Czechoslovakia to submit to a deal at Munich in 1938, so too have Western powers
helped impose a deal on the Bosnians.
This peacekeeping plan will in fact police an agreement which rewards aggression.
This also resembles 1938. And what happened then? The aggressor-Nazi Germany-
was not pacified, not satisfied with the part of Czechoslovakia it was awarded at Munich,
and continued the aggression. While not as powerful as Nazi Germany, there is every
indication that Serbia will continue in its expansionist and genocidal policies much
as Germany did 55 years ago.
As I understand it, the Clinton Administration is proposing to take part in p ~essive
peacekeeping operation consisting of some 50,000 NATO troops to be deployed in
Bosnia immediately upon the conclusion of an agreement between the warring parties.
American troops would likely be placed in the southeastern part of Bosnia-
Herzegovina, primarily in and around the cities of Sarajevo, Mostar, and Goradze-that is,
46
American troops will be placed in the areas of most intense conflict. Methods of
deployment being discussed include delivery of troops by sea via the Croatian ports of
Split and Ploce or by rail through Serbia and perhaps Belgrade.
What will the actual cost of the operation be to the United States, the contributions
of others, and the duration? It has been estimated that the cost of this operation would
be around $4 billion per year, with the United States providing half the personnel and half
the money, which is to say 25,000 troops at the cost of $2 billion annually.
The Clinton Administration insists that contributions from NATO countries and other allies
be pledged as a prerequisite for American involvement. Do other NATO members agree?
Will the struggle of getting contributions seen in Operations Desert Shield and Desert
Storm be repeated? Will other nations pay a fair share as costs spiral? From what part
of the U.S. budget will American contributions come? Since it is imperative that the
Defense Department's finite resources not be raided for this large undertaking, will the
Administration seek special appropriations?
What will be the duration of American participation in this operation? The process
of deployment itself is said to be a lengthy logistical task. U.N. peacekeeping operations
often last for many years. Will this one drag for a decade at truly inestimable costs?
What will be the rules of engagement for Amer ican troops in Bosnia? And who will
determine them? President Clinton and the Permanent U.S. Representative to the United
Nations, Madeleine Albright, have tried to allay fears about the terms under which
American troops would be placed in harm's way to police in the no man's lands of
Bosnia. Obviously, standard U.N. peacekeeping guidelines of shoot-only-when-shot-at
are not appropriate here. But what will the rules of engagement be in an operation
conducted by NATO but authorized by the United Nations? These rules should be
determined by the U.S. and NATO — not the U.N. Secretariat — and should be clearly
defined in advance, or many lives could be needlessly lost. But these are no precedents
-- only claims.
The discussion of a U.N. peacekeeping operation implemented by NATO raises
the key questions of command and control. The administration has sought in recent
days to assure critics that large peacekeeping operations Americans would be
commanded by American officers answering to American civilian political leaders. But the
Secretary-General of the United Nations has consistently claimed the role of commander-
in-chief for U.N. peacekeeping forces and has said that NATO peacekeepers should
answer to him. Moreover, the British and French governments have apparently
supported his positions. While the administration app^-s to be ensuring sovereign
control over our troops, no ambiguity should be permitted on this question of command
and control.
47
The Other Path: Better Late Than Never
There is another path which some of us have recommended for a year and a half.
It resembles the plan advocated by the U.S. president when he was a candidate.
The First Step:
I believe the United States should lead the way in lifting the arms embargo which
freezes in place asymmetrical advantages for Serbia. The Bosnians must be permitted
to defend themselves-a right not granted by the U.N. Charter, but recognized by Article
51 it as inherent to nation-states. Make no mistake, Bosnia js a sovereign nation-state,
a member of the United Nations. In leading the way to lift the arms embargo, the United
States should remind the world that the embargo was applied to a state that no longer
exists - namely, greater Yugoslavia, and not to Bosnia. The United States should assert
a leadership. The Clinton Administration has in the case of Bosnia interpreted
"consultation" with allies to mean that the U.S. should seek permission from its allies to
act, and lacking their approval should not act. I believe the U.S. should consult with the
European allies about the policy of lifting an arms embargo which it will pursue -- with or
without them.
The Second Step:
Then the United States should act to arm the Bosnian Muslims. The Hyde
Amendment would make arming the Bosnian Muslims American policy. It should be
passed. This action may need to be unilateral, but it is clearly permissible under
international law. Under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, nations can act to provide for their
collective self-defense. The U.S., if it must, can - alone - help the Bosnians defend
themselves.
Unfortunately, the Clinton Administration has so far been unwilling to act
unilaterally. In a speech last Thursday, National Security Adviser to the President,
Anthony Lake, said of American action regarding Bosnia: "while we have clear reasons
to engage and persist. ..they do not justify the extreme costs of taking unilateral
responsibility for imposing a solution."
With all due respect, I disagree with Dr. Lake. A superpower has an impact when
it fails to act as well as when it acts. The U.S. is already involved in "imposing a solution,"
to use Lake's words, but, alas, it is an unjust one. And the "extreme costs" -- moral,
political and eventually, military -- lie in not helping the Q~snian Muslims. If the U.N. and
the Europeans will not let the victims of aggression and ethnic cleansing defend
themselves, then as the world's only remaining superpower, the United States should.
48
It is not a futile policy. The Bosnian Muslims have shown some military strength
in the field, notably in clashes with Croatian militiamen in recent days near Mostar and
Vrtez.
Reports of recent military activity of the Bosnian Muslims on the ground
demonstrate their viability.
They have captured parts of Medved, "a Strategic highland area just outside
Mostar that is within artillery range" of Siroki Brijeg, a Croatian stronghold.
They have also had some successes in securing positions near the Bosnian
town of Bugojno. (New York Times 9/20/93.)
They have launched an offensive against Croat forces who threaten the
highway linking Mostar with Muslim-controlled central Bosnia. (New York
Times 9/16/93.)
According to U.N. and E.C. monitors, the Bosnian army "has nearly doubled
the territory under its undisputed authority and virtually reversed the
proportion of Bosnia held by Muslims and Croats."
Now they control the "once ethnically mixed towns of Travnik, Kakanj,
Fojnica, Bugojno, and most of Gornji Vakof."
They have taken 1410 square miles of land previously controlled by
Croat forces.
A Muslim military offensive has left a number of isolated Croat
enclaves inside Muslim-held territory (e.g. in Vares, Busovaca, and
Kiseljak).
On July 2nd, they launched a preemptive strike against Croat forces
in the town of Zenica. Within two weeks the Bosnian army had
driven out the militia and all but 200 of the town's 6,600 Croats.
(Washington Post 9/12/93.)
The argument that the United States and the West would only fuel the carnage in
the Balkans if it helped Bosnians procure weapons is a mistake.
The Third Step:
The final element of the other path would involve American airpower. Evidence so
far indicates that the Serbian government understands only the language of force. With
little risk, and less cost, the United States could use its superior technological power to
great advantage. It could lift sieges, interrupt the flow of arms, fuel, and food to Serbian
49
forces. Moreover, the U.S. can play a vital part in the Bosnians' self-defense by
providing air cover.
There are, of course, stable, well-defined, "high-contrast" targets in Serbia to bomb.
Battle tanks and field artillery pieces shelling Sarajevo can be found and taken out by
American aircraft. The assertion that the ground forces in Yugoslavia are elusive and
hence hard to target are overstated.
I believe there are three alternatives for American policy. First, we can continue
to do nothing, trying not to notice the slaughter in Bosnia.
Second, we can distinguish between aggressors and victims, remove the arms
embargo, help Bosnians secure arms, and use U.S. airpower to assist them.
Third, we can pursue the plan the Clinton Administration is now proposing - which
requires the introduction of 2500 U.S. ground troops in the Balkans.
This is the worst alternative.
The mission of these "peacekeeping" troops would be to enforce an unjust
agreement imposed by force on the Bosnian Muslims, "agreed" to only under extreme
duress to prevent death by starvation or exposure of many thousands of Bosnians during
the coming winter.
It is bad enough that the United States and other Western governments have
stood by passively in response to Serbian sponsored aggression against Croatia and
Bosnia. To assign American troops to enforce a settlement based on aggression, ethnic
cleansing, rape, starvation, mass murder is nearly unthinkable.
The use of American force to enforce borders of the "new" Bosnia would not be
acceptable to the consciences of many Americans. We know how those borders came
to be. We have watched the long brutal violation of law, morality and the U.N. Charter
which clearly forbids "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political
independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the
United Nations."
The proposed peacekeeping operation will be expensive and ineffective.
It will leave in place *u3 government and the leaders who sponsored and
conducted aggression. It will preserve the unequal balance of force which enabled
Serbians to conquer territory and people in Croatia and Bosnia.
U.N. peacekeeping forces will be seen as a symbol of international acceptance of
violence and conquest. As such, they can only encourage other potential aggressors.
50
Not only would such a peacekeeping operation enforce an unjust peace, but it
would be more dangerous and more costly than the other path. The other path does not
require putting some 25,000 American troops in harm's way on the ground in Bosnia-
Herzegovina, to save as lightning rod, inviting attack. American troops do not resemble
the professional neutral peacekeepers of Northern Europe. They have been trained to
serve as partisans for freedom. They will inevitably be attractive targets to Serbian
leaders and other enemies of self-determination in the region.
Even the proposed path of deployment is dangerous. Sending Americans through
Serbia by rail invites trouble. Deployment by sea into Croatia also may not be safe.
Lifting the arms embargo, helping Bosnians secure arms, using air power, is less
dangerous because it does not involve thousands of ground troops. The Clinton
Administration has agonized long over the anguish of Bosnia. In a list of foreign
"accomplishments" identified in his Thursday speech, Anthony Lake said "We have
struggled with the complex tragedy in Bosnia." Struggling is not enough.
Judging the Clinton Plan by the Administration's Own Standards
Fears of senior Clinton Administration officials about the drawbacks of not
participating in this "peacekeeping" operation have been reported in the press in recent
days. If these reports are accurate, they fear that without American involvement in a
major peace enforcement effort the killing will continue in the Balkans, more refugees will
be displaced from Bosnia, the conflict might spill over into new regions (like Macedonia
and Kosovo), and relations with Muslim countries will suffer. But just any action will not
help.
I believe the actions the Clinton Administration now proposes will bring about the
outcomes they seek to avoid.
In recent days the Clinton Administration has articulated new criteria for U.S.
participation in peacekeeping:
that Congress approve of the mission initially and periodically thereafter;
that the belligerents demonstrate "seriousness" in pursuing peace;
that these warring parties freely invite peacekeepers and American forces onto
thr' woil to police a ceasefire;
that NATO members and other nations agree to share the financial burden and
contribute substantial numbers of troops to the operation; and
51
- that a clear "exit strategy" is enunciated for removing American peacekeepers
under scenarios of success (the establishment of a robust peace) or failure (the
recognition of open warfare).
I believe the proposed policy fails to satisfy several of these criteria. There are no
grounds to think that the aggressors of the past will relinquish their expansionist and
genocidal policies. Why should we imagine that a peace which rewards Serbia and their
Bosnian Serb collaborators by letting them keep territory won by aggression will convince
them to stop now?
The plan to send American troops to act as peacekeepers also fails the test of an
"exit strategy." Will peace ever be established so securely that the Americans can come
home? And if so, when? If, as is likely, the peacekeeping operation proves to be a
costly failure rather than success, how and when will American troops be removed? Will
not American credibility be severely damaged if we withdraw in failure? Without a clear
definition of victory in the style of a more traditional military intervention, without a clear
purpose, without clear national interests, an "exit strategy" will remain murky. Without
arms for Bosnia and a better balance of forces, there is no exit strategy.
I urge the Congress to lift the arms embargo, give arms and assistance to the
Bosnians, use American airpower to punish aggressors and end ethnic cleansing.
52
THE WOODROW WILSON CENTER
EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES
MAKING THE CASE FOR UNITED STATES TROOPS IN BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA
Testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs
September 29, 1993
John R. Lampe
Director, East European Studies
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars*
A last window of opportunity may yet open in the war over Bosnia Herzegovina. This
window does not bring the clean, fresh air of a guaranteed settlement among fully responsible
leaders representing only their war-weary populations. In Croatia as well as Serbia, only
ineffectively divided oppositions represent the war- weary majority. But this open window does
bring the cold air of winter to help discourage the continuation of hostilities. If this war
continues now or resumes next spring, it will surely cost many more thousands of lives and
surely spread beyond the Bosnian border, most likely to Kosovo, Macedonia and beyond. Such
a wider conflict would make the Bosnian war's threat to European security and to the democratic
transition in Southeastern Europe, both vital United States interests, too clear too late.
The presently proposed partition of Bosnia Herzegovina is hardly attractive in itself. By
Western standards of human rights, it does not measure up to the original Vance-Owen plan,
with its minority rights both for political representation and for refugees' returning to
dispossessed property in each of its 10 provinces. Never mind that spilled milk, and the initial
American reluctance to support the plan and the peace-keeping force of 50,000 Western troops
that was deemed necessary, then as now, to enforce it. That was early February; this is late
September.
The Clinton Administration has rightly encouraged the Bosnian government of Alija
Izetbegovic to drive the hardest, least bad bargain that it could with the Bosnian Serb and Croat
regimes. This summer, however, largely out of Western sight, Bosnian Muslim forces went
beyond bargaining to conduct a considerable offensive in central Bosnia against the Croatian
HVO, pressing west and south toward Mostar. David Ottoway's article in the Washington Post
of September 12 offers an account of the ethnic cleansing of Croats that was involved, an
account worth mentioning here as a cautionary tale for advocates of lifting the arms' embargo
and as counterpoint to the numerous accounts of recent Croatian cleansing of Muslims, the siege
of Mostar, and maltreatment of war prisoners on their side of the line. Add the continuing
The views expressed here by Dr. Lampe are his own and do not reflect those of the Woodrow Wilson
Center, which does not take political positions.
53
barbarism of the Bosnian Serbs' bombardment of Sarajevo, as well as their initial responsibility,
shared with Slobodan Milosevic, for starting the Bosnian war, stir in the entry from the start of
troops from Croatia into Herzegovina, and what set of forces do you have? Ones that have
shown no signs of being able to observe a cease-fire, let alone a settlement, by themselves.
Bosnian government representatives in particular have long insisted that only the presence of a
sizeable contingent of Western troops on the ground, with the United States in the lead, can
enforce any settlement and then only under aggressive rules of engagement.
Exit any reconstituted UNPROFOR arrangement and its passive rules of engagement, and
enter an American-led NATO force that offers the only hope for establishing peace long enough
for pressure for more reasonable politics and the return of economic rationality to assert itself.
The administration's detailed plan for just such a presence has now come forward, but with a
set of qualifications that makes observers wonder whether it is intended only to promise an
enforced settlement without the likelihood that any troops will actually be dispatched or paid for.
Among the qualifications for "getting in" that I find most troubling is the indeterminate period
for observing that all sides are not only observing a cease-fire but also pulling back both troops
and heavy weapons. Their leaders cannot, I fear, trust or compel local commanders to do this
on their own.
What about the risk of United States troops facing an escalating series of Somalia-like
skirmishes and then having no predictable way of getting out? Although the various armies and
militias in Bosnia Herzegovina are neither well trained nor tightly disciplined, they are still
sufficiently concentrated and controlled to be far more vulnerable to the striking power of United
States troops and technology, including air power, than the scattered urban guerrillas of Somali
warlords. And the troops as well as the commanders of the assorted Bosnian forces, the Serbs
in particular, know it, several sources have assured me.
"Getting out" is another matter. An open-ended commitment to turn Bosnia Herzegovina
into a NATO mandate or trust territory of course asks too much. The administration speaks of
staying for at least one year. Let me propose one year with mandated consideration of renewal
for another year. That potential renewal seems to me a significantly better guarantee that a
lasting, wider accommodation, from Croatia to Macedonia, can be reached than does Senator
Nunn's proposal for "exit and lift". Promising to lift the arms' embargo on the Bosnian
Muslims as a farewell gesture if the impending settlement fails unfortunately gives those Muslim
commanders not under direct control by the Bosnian government, an incentive to violate the
settlement in order to gain access to more arms. (We should not underestimate the weaponry and
supplies they currently receive). Such a stipulation would tempt Serb and Croat commanders
to strike first before Muslim forces could receive or deploy new arms. It would also discourage
them from accepting the NATO force as a guarantor of equal accountability for all sides in
observing the terms of settlement and paying a "fair", that is a strict and severe price for any
violation. The proposed concentration of United States forces in Sarajevo. Mostar and Gorazde
affords the largely urban Muslim population who are the principal victims of this war an overdue
guarantee of safety in any case.
54
Finally, how can the Congress and the administration assure the American people that
the Tudjman government in Zagreb and the Milosevic government in Belgrade will not only do
all they can to insure the observance of peace terms in Bosnia but also avoid the temptation to
resume the 1991 war for Croatian territory of Serb or formerly mixed population? If the
Croatian government wishes to avoid some version of the economic sanctions imposed on Serbia
in 1992, it should reverse its recent decision to deny the renewal of the UNPROFOR mandate
to keep peace in the contested areas of Croatia. In fact, that government might do better to seek
again to negotiate terms for a settlement with Serbia, a process the United States government
should encourage.
How can we "encourage" the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic to comply?
Only by weakening the public support that clumsy and needlessly comprehensive sanctions have
generated for Milosevic and still worse for Vojislav Seselj. August public opinion polls show
such support now rising in Belgrade and the other cities whose living standards have been
devastated by the sanctions. Their populations are reversing their previous opposition to old
Communists and new nationalists. Let us lift requirements for the always delayed or denied
permissions for food and medicine, and for all raw materials or equipment connected thereto,
requirements that have made a mockery of the supposed exemption of food and medicine. (See
Henry Kamm's August 23 article in the International Herald Tribune on the grim medical
consequences). The promise of lifting all sanctions could then be used to insure Serbian
compliance with a Bosnian settlement and also good faith negotiations with Croatia and, lest we
forget, with the Albanian population of Kosovo. If such dealings were beyond the capacity of
the Milosevic regime, so much the better. Let us then deal with the alternative regime that will
be needed in any case to restore Serbia's honorable place as a European state and nation.
55
(N
U
&
3
si& 1111
9 ITS Si • u a k.
« 4"Esoi.|
iJJgJ»a;
1
JS6.U
3 ess 3=j
.. o o 3 9
iWii
I .g sa?l 5-
•8*13 1 2 Tfli3
?»^a*d S-.u' to o "
iiMf5fa*gB|af
i
o
is
3D
i
■5
■2 I
3 i
CD 5
8
a
i
J
eq
•\
-a
a
■s
s
a
o
iliff!!l
s a»f. 1*8 -s5.fi
a.5, .3 m .2 -a ? -a
-Sifr-iai-a
l-rfl-Bf H.S-N
= SO Q.-0 o
3-3 a i ■ _.2.
13
ill ||
slip
S..8S
- _ *._
.a 2 E S
1 III
S * 5
(^ ii *- at
11111
8 g3'eJ£
S
S -<
=-1
S3 =£-
a o E o 73
« g-3-s a
g-S o *
= B c
OJS
5 3 2
c 5
2J u-ao-S;
,;g3
fi, Bl Mi
= 9u
-= o :=,
* o _
>
a-"
-5 t:
N s -
<rSs
<rt O *J o «*»
S3
3 1
->• u u «
^3 .e£.£
I
P 2
1*1
c « > —
P, « J c
->*!•* §
■So— ««
■a o i
« 3 U
B u a
oSi
2 S e
ij »> o
S §2
Sf-s
is «
1 ° -
8J1
— cj rt
56
The »*smiwctow Post
Bosnian Muslims' Gains May Have High Cost
By David R Ul 10* ay
FOJNICA. Uoaiua-IVianias Mm-
lira led irmy has made major Rims
this summer m expanding and f0""
sohdaling us cimtrul over central
Bosnia hi animpation of establishing
• separate Muslim rrpul.lu
But in military successes may
have come at the expense ol the ide-
ili (or whvh Bosnian leaders have
Hid Iher were fighting this lone.
Moody civil war: preservation of Ihe
country's mulii-ethmc spirit and
character.
The heavy coat to their long-de-
clared war objective is written sadly
ados* Ihe (tuned remains nl scores
of homes and a lurmiure factory in
this Mile crossroads town. Once held
up lo (he world by Croats and Mus-
Irms as a model ol I heir successful
power sharing, it now offers only an
example of Muslim "ethnic clean-
mf.'
While the Western media have
cancemrated Ihcir attention on Mus-
ks) nrffermg in Sarajevo and more
teeentlv in Mnstar. Ihe Bosnian army
has tystematically puslied the Croat
population out of many ethnically
mned (owns such as Fojnica all
across Ihe mdusm.il heartland of
Bosnia
Thratsands nf Croal civilians have
fled hecauar llicir lumirs wrte de-
strnyrd in Ihe ('gluing, they fraied
Muslim rriribaitSiiti and ink*, or Ihry
were ordered l« leave liy their own
retreating prnicriors.
Since earli June, die Bosnian
aimv has nearly doubled Ihe Icrri-
iiiii under Ms uiidisiwicd aulhnriiy
and viiuallv reversed Ihe proporlnn
nf flosma held by Mualitna and
Cioals. according lo U.N. and Eu-
ropean Community mnnitota.
The Muslims have moie land now
than Ihe Crnaia. perhaps 20 per-
cent.' said a U N miluary officer
monitoring the fighting in central
Bosnia.
The Bosnian army now controls
the once ethnically mixed towns of
Tiavnik. Kakatu. Finnic*. Ilugojno
and most pf C.ninji Vakuf and has
pushed southward to Moalar. wliere
il haa run nun still fltttlian rests-
lance and is under siege
In some instances, such aa Ru-
gnjrto. Rnantan l roal lorrca have or-
ilered Cmal nvili.ius In Iravr. The
Ironps have iianstwittrd iIip rrfugrrs
to Cinaihrld ullages in south
western fWnia and inalallcd them in
homes Ihe Gnat Inters had aeired
from their Muslim owners
The Bosnian arntv a summer of-
fensive has had I wo Itev nbrcclivcx.
according f" I' N and Luropeaii
sources First, it has sought to con-
solidate Muslim control over Ihe fu-
ture heartland of a Muslim republic
stretching from Tuzla m Ihe north
and past Sarajevo to the south.
Secondly, it has tried to push
through Croat held territory <n
southwestern Bosnia to establish a
Muslim coin rolled land corridor In
Ihe Adriatic Sea.
But a strong Croat military and
< ivilian presence in Prozor and M<»-
star. and a Croat counleroffensive
around C.omn Vakuf remain major
obstacles lo achieving the land cor-
ridor goal.
According lo a document distrib-
uted by the Bosnian Croats in Gene-
va in early August, since April 16 Ihe
Muslim-led Bosnian army had taken
1 .4 10 square miles of land previously
controlled by the Croat militia.
The document charged that Ihe
Muslim-led army had forced Croat
residents from six towns and 153
villages since April. Thai is moie
than Ihe the sue towns and 68 vil-
lages the document said were eth-
nically "cleansed" by Bosnian Serb
forces since October 1991.
While Bosnian President Alija Izel-
hegovtc. a Muslim, was decrying a
continuing Serb offensive around
Sarajevo in late July that breached a
cease lire agreement, his army was
doing the same thing m cential Bos-
ma.
The all-out struggle for territory
between Bosnian Muslims and
Croats, erstwhile allies, began in
mid April, wuh the Croats gcnerallv
blamed for launching the first ollen
shre to consolidate their territory.
But starling in early June. Ihe Mus-
lim-led Bosnian army retaliated with
a well-coordinated and highly suc-
cessful counteroffensrve.
The Muslim military offensive has
left a series of isnUted Croat en-
claves insule Muslun-lield territory.
tiurrontig the Muslim enclaves uf
Srebrenica. Zepa and Gorxfde within
Sr-rh-held leiruorv in eastern Bos-
ma. Croat towns such as Vares.
Ilusovaea. Proror and Kisehak are
struggling tn survive inside Muslim-
held territory.
A five-month Croat blockade of all
roads into central Bosnia has only
served to worsen conditions for the
remaining Croal population. The
blockade has prevented delivery of
humanitarian food supplies, although
a representative of Ihe U.N. High
Commissioner (or Refugees in Sara-
jevo reported Sept. S that 20 con-
voys had suddenly been allowed
through
D.N. and European monilnrs sav
Ihe fate ol Ihe rcmainine Croats ami
Serbs within Musluu-hi Id lauds has
been made more problematic hv Hie
Rosman Serb campaign <iure earlv
spring tn push IIMI.OIMt Muslims nut
of Serh-held territories
lhese refugees drifted into Mus-
lim-dominated towns such as l-'nrmra
and changed Ihe ethnic balance.
making demands on local authorities
lo turn over vacanl, and even occu-
pied. Croal homes to them.
In addition, the latest Geneva
peace plan to partition llosnta intn
Croat. Muslim and Serb lepublus
has made things worse fur Croats
and Serbs in Muslim-held areas.
"There are .100.000 refugees in
Icentral Bosma| who won I be able lo
go back home, land are! demanding
the homes of Croats and Serbs m the
area." said an EC representative tn
Zenica. He said the partition plan had
been a disaster for the elforts of Ihe
European Community, which has a
large monitoring operation in central
Bosnia to promote inter-elhmc co-
operation.
"The idea of the division of the
country is the complete opposite of
what we hare been working to
achieve on the ground." he said dur-
ing a recent interview in Zenica. "We
were tr-ymg to work to keep people
together."
From ihe start of the war in April
1992 until early July 1993. this for-
merly miied town, which resembles
an Alpine Swiss mountain village
badly damaged by artillery and fires.
was a model of Muslim-Croat peace-
ful coexistence
But on July 2. ihe Bosnian army
carried out what its Muslim com-
mander here described as a preemp-
tive strike" agamst the Croat mibtia.
starting with a massive shelling of
Ihe Croat sector of the town. Within
two weeks, the Bosnian army had
driven out the militia and all but 200
of the town's 6.600 Croats.
Just two days before the Busman
army action, the former commander
uf U.N. forces in Bosnia. French Lt.
Gen. Philippe Morilfnn. had conn-
liere to celebrate ihe successful
Croat-Muslim cooperation m Form, a
which had been declared hv his com-
mand "an area nf special interest ."
Muslim authorities here subse-
quently appeared embarrassed, se-
cretive and defensive about what had
happened.
Gen. Origan Andnc. chief of staff
of Ihe Bosnian army s 6th Corps,
sought to pass himself off to Western
reporters as a "liaison olficer" and
refused lo disclose either his real
position or rank. He said he was a
Muslim with a Croat wife and Seib
mother, adding. T am a real Bosnian
and I believe it heller for all three
nationalities (Croats Serbs and Mus-
lims! lo stav tngetlit-r
He assured reporters that the
Croats ol Fojnica arc Iree tn return
and the town a Muslim authorities
waul to restore its ethnirallv mixed
character All honest Croats without
blood on their hands can ennte hark.
he said.
But the town s Muslim mayor,
Nasir Selimovic. said he was not
about to go lo Kisclnk. where the
town s Croat population had fled, to
appeal lo litem to return, and he
doubted nianv would any-wav.
o
73-703 (64)
BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
llllllilHL
3 9999 05706 6571
ISBN 0-16-041783-X
9 780160
417832
00
00